Green is off: payments for Russian oil in dollars have dropped to 5%
Payments for Russian oil and petroleum products in dollars fell to 5%, while in yuan they rose to 67%. In general, the currencies of friendly countries and the ruble account for more than 90% of payments for raw materials and fuel, according to the documents of the Ministry of Energy. Experts positively assess the move away from dollar payments for energy resources, but believe that Russia needs to focus on expanding the use of other currencies in order to avoid the hegemony of any one, be it the yuan or the dollar.
How to pay for Russian oil
The share of the US dollar in the revenue structure from the export of oil and petroleum products has decreased from 55% to 5% since 2022, while the share of the euro has fallen from 30% to 1%. This is stated in the presentation of the Ministry of Energy "Strategy for the development of the oil industry until 2050: tasks, solutions and results," which was reviewed by Izvestia.
At the same time, as noted in the document, the ruble accounts for 24% of payments, the yuan accounts for 67%, and payments in other world currencies account for 4%.
Russia began to move away from the dollar and the euro in calculations after the introduction of multiple sanctions by the West and the beginning of its
"The trend towards using the dollar and the euro has changed a lot. Given the problems of settlement in these currencies, we are switching to national ones. Yuan and ruble are in demand here. This vector will continue," Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said back in April 2023.
According to him, Chinese partners pay for Russian gas in yuan. Some of them also include payments for Russian oil.
"We will continue to improve mutual settlements in national currencies," the Deputy Prime Minister said.
He noted that foreign partners are interested in buying Russian energy resources, but now payments for them can only be made in national currencies.
According to the statistics of the Central Bank, by the end of 2024, dollars and euros for the first time in annual terms occupied the smallest share in the structure of currencies when calculating for Russian exports. Their share was 18.6%, which decreased by 13 percentage points from 31.6% over the year. This happened against the background of an increase in the share of currencies of friendly countries to 40.2% from 29.4% in 2023.
At the same time, for the second year in a row, the ruble occupies the largest share in export settlement transactions — 41.3%, but this exceeds the indicator of 2023 by only 2.3 percentage points. When calculating imports, dollars and euros also took the smallest share for the first time.
As Izvestia wrote, payments for Russian goods in rubles are also growing. In total, 53% of such transactions were conducted in national currency in the second quarter of 2025 (40% a year earlier). The ruble's presence increased by 15 percentage points in trade with Asia (to 51%), and its share doubled with the American region (to 48%). In export payments with Oceania, Africa and the Caribbean, our country has almost completely switched to rubles — the share of them exceeded 90%.
Why did India agree to the yuan
Speaking of payments for Russian oil and petroleum products, it is worth noting that India is one of the largest importers, but rupees are not represented in the revenue structure provided by the Ministry of Energy in the presentation.
According to Tamara Safonova, Director General of the Independent Analytical Agency for the Oil and Gas Sector (NAANS-Media), in 2024 India imported 87.5 million tons of oil and 5.1 million tons of petroleum products (36 and 5%, respectively, of total exports).
In the fall of 2023, Bloomberg reported that New Delhi rejected the demands of Russian suppliers to pay in yuan due to strained relations with Beijing. "The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not accept these conditions. Almost 70% of India's refineries are owned by the state, therefore, most of the refineries will not pay in Chinese currency," the report said.
Nevertheless, the republic switched to the yuan. According to Valery Andrianov, an associate professor at the Financial University, rupees have limited opportunities to convert into rubles both because of the general weakness of the Indian currency and because of the imbalance in bilateral trade (the republic buys more goods from Russia, primarily energy resources, than it supplies to the Russian Federation).
— Therefore, in most cases, such conversion is carried out through the dollar, which leads to additional fees and associated risks, especially in the context of sanctions. As a result, rupees are practically not used when paying for Russian oil," the expert noted.
He added that the yuan turned out to be the best option: it is liquid and can be easily converted into rubles. In some cases, the payment was made in dirhams of the UAE.
According to Ekaterina Kosareva, managing partner of VMT Consult, India had to agree to the terms of the Russian exporters.
— Purchases of cheap Russian oil have allowed Indian refineries to increase margins, as Urals oil is supplied at a discount to Brent. Replacing domestic supplies with Middle Eastern energy resources will dramatically reduce the profitability of processing, she believes.
Over the past three years, Indian refineries have saved $12.6 billion by increasing oil purchases from Russia, The Indian Express reported, citing an analysis of government statistics. According to the newspaper, the benefits of the refinery are even greater, as the import of Russian oil held down world oil prices.
Dedollarization to be or not to be
And yet, according to experts, in the near future, the yuan will not be able to replace the dollar in the oil markets. As Valery Andrianov noted, the fact is that while it is not a freely convertible currency, its exchange rate is determined by the People's Bank of China.
— In addition, the meaning of the very concept of the "petrodollar" is that the American currency is both a means of payment for black gold and many other resources, and a means of reinvestment and accumulation. The yuan is used much less as a means of lending and saving in world practice, including due to the peculiarities of the financial policy of the Chinese authorities," he stressed.
Therefore, it is unlikely that the yuan will completely displace the dollar in the oil trade, the expert believes.
— Rather, we should focus on expanding the use of other types of currencies, including the ruble. Such diversification will lead to lower risks in the future, as it will eliminate the hegemony of any one currency, be it the yuan or the dollar," Valery Andrianov believes.
According to Tamara Safonova, the Russian currency also plays a significant role in trade transactions in the sale of energy resources and has an impact on smoothing currency imbalances.
In addition, trade wars and sanctions pressure will increasingly influence the rapprochement of the BRICS and SCO countries in terms of abandoning the euro and the dollar, using the national currencies of the alliance countries and pursuing a policy of creating unified payment systems and depository infrastructure protected from the restrictions of the countries of the collective West, she concluded.
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