The Russian economy (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

So Dayuhan--now that you have seen "official" Russian oil/gas statements and noticed they tended to be out of touch with "reality" then is really Russia one large supper Ponzi scheme just teetering?

Of course; it's been that way for ages, it's only recently that people are looking. As I said, any information from Russian sources has to be assumed to be unreliable. They are in a bad way on a lot of levels, not as bad as Venezuela, but no oil producers are as bad off as Venezuela. That doesn't mean a collapse is imminent: they can carry on for some time just by shuffling the numbers faster. Long term it is not sustainable, but as we've seen in Venezuela things can stagger on for quite a time.

Dayuhan---by the way a side question--was the press release for internal Russian consumption and or external global consummation?

Which press release? If you mean the unsourced price quote from Twitter, if it's Urals it's export; it's an export blend. I don't know of any source that reports internal Russian prices.

This would interest you:

http://www.platts.com/latest-news/sh...crude-26875445

and:

http://af.reuters.com/article/energy...BrandChannel=0

The unusual Chinese purchases of Urals might be an effort to prop up the market, or it might just be taking advantage of low prices.

Data from Platts or based on the Platts window are always interesting because they report actual transactions, not just rolling average price quotes.