The Azerbaijani government plans to take the price of 1 barrel of oil at 65 dollars in the 2026 state budget. This is evident from the preliminary indicators of next year's state budget announced by the Ministry of Finance.
In the 2025 state budget, 1 barrel of oil is taken at 70 dollars.
Is lowering the oil price in the budget the right decision? If so, should the price be set at 65 dollars or cheaper?
Speaking to Medianews.az on the subject, former Minister of Finance, chairman of the "Economics" International Economic Research Association, Doctor of Economics, Professor Fikret Yusifov stated that when determining the price of oil in the state budget for the next three years, it is necessary to carefully examine the probabilities of how oil prices may change until the end of next year against the background of world political events.
F. Yusifov recalled that before U.S. President Donald Trump came to power, he had declared that he would take steps to sharply reduce oil prices in the world markets: "However, during the nearly 8 months that have passed, the only step taken in this direction on his initiative was the decision made by OPEC in 2023 to reduce daily oil production by 1.6 million barrels, which was later changed. This year, OPEC has twice decided to restore the reduced production volume of 2023 and decided to increase daily production overall by up to 578 thousand barrels.
Soon, the reduced production will be fully restored, and with this, an additional 1.6 million barrels of oil will be supplied daily to the market. This step is aimed at lowering oil prices in the world markets. Overall, despite the sanctions imposed on Russian oil exports, the possibility of increasing oil production on a larger scale by the U.S. and OPEC+ countries in the upcoming periods is high.
These realities must definitely be taken into account when determining oil prices in next year's state budget. I believe that under the current circumstances, if the price of one barrel of oil is set at the level of 50 dollars for the start in the state budget, this can be considered a more optimal option."
Naile Qasimova,
Medianews.az
