The share of the oil and gas industry in Russia's economy declined to 15 percent in 2020, down from 19.2 percent in 2019, according to a first such assessment published by the Russian statistics agency Rosstat.
Back in 2018, this share was even higher than in 2019, at 21.1 percent, according to the statistics, which analysts say is generally in line with what they were estimating before the publication of the official Rosstat data this week.
In 2020, oil and gas generated US$219 billion (16.3 trillion Russian rubles) of Russia's gross domestic product, according to estimates by Russian outlet RBC based on Russian GDP data for last year.
The Russian oil and gas industry's share of the overall GDP is generally in line with the average 15-20 percent estimate for other major oil producers, Ekaterina Grushevenko, expert at the Skolkovo energy center in Russia, told RBC.
For example, the share of oil and gas makes 8 percent of U.S. GDP, a massive 50 percent of Saudi GDP, 14 percent of Norway's GDP, 13.3 percent of Kazakhstan's GDP, 30 percent of the GDP of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and less than 10 percent in Canada, according to the expert.
"The data published by the Russian statistics office about the share of oil and gas in Russian GDP is fully in line with our estimates," Alex Isakov, Chief Economist at VTB Capital, told the RBC outlet.
The perception in Russia is that oil and gas makes up around half of Russia's GDP, but this is more likely due to the fact that fossil fuel exports account for around 50-60 percent of all Russian exports, Oleg Shibanov, finance professor at the New Economic School in Russia, told RBC.
At the end of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the country is successfully weaning itself off oil revenues.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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