The ruble continues to fall. Yesterday, the dollar and the euro rose by more than one and a half rubles. For the first time since April 14 last year, the euro rose to 90 rubles and the dollar rose above 82 rubles, according to data from the Moscow Stock Exchange.
Since the beginning of the week, the dollar has risen by more than 5%, the euro has risen by 10 rubles, or almost 13%.
Last spring, after the Russian military invasion of Ukraine and the international sanctions against Russia imposed in response, the ruble crashed. However Shares Bank of Russia, a sharp drop in imports and the preservation of income from energy exports (prices were high and sanctions on oil exports were introduced only at the end of the year) led to the strengthening of the ruble.
Analysts attribute the current depreciation of the ruble to the end of the fiscal period. Large exporters exchanged currencies for rubles in order to make payments to the budget. Other reasons for the weakening of the ruble include an increase in imports amid falling exports, a decrease in foreign exchange sales by the Ministry of Finance amid rising oil prices, and speculative demand for foreign currency. due to capital outflow. From Russia. The fall of the ruble is also affected by the increase in the number of business sale transactions of foreign companies in Russia, since buyers need foreign currency to conclude them.
Bloomberg therefore linked the fall in the ruble exchange rate to the exit of the British company Shell from the Sakhalin-2 project. This week it became known that Vladimir Putin gave NOVATEK personal permission to buy Shell’s stake in the Sakhalin-2 project for almost 95 billion rubles. In this case, the funds will be sent to the UK company’s overseas account. Thus, Shell will be able to withdraw this money from Russia.
At the same time, in their opinion, there is no fundamental reason to expect the ruble exchange rate to remain at the current level. One of the reasons is the rise in oil prices after the decision of a number of OPEC countries to cut oil production by more than one million barrels per day.
