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The Russian government has said that it plans no cuts in oil export duties next month despite the rapid drop in oil prices, as it needs to protect its budget needs, a Finance Ministry official said on Monday.

Alexander Sakovich, deputy head of the Finance Ministry's customs payment department, said the Ministry would stick to its current system of changing export duties every two months, which is next scheduled for December 1st. This is despite complaints from oil producers for the export tax to be lowered a month earlier.

"The cut in November is not possible. The duties are set by the law for a period of two months, and the government cannot freely change it," he said.

"Why can the budget afford to share its surplus while oil firms say they cannot because they have already spent all their windfall profits? They start crying immediately. And I want to ask you: Do you think the budget is not suffering right now? It also feels the pain," he said.

The Russian government normally adjusts the export tax on crude and petroleum products every two months, based on the previous two-month average price for Urals, the country's benchmark export blend.

The export duty for October and November was cut by 23 percent to $372.20 per tonne from the previously announced $485.50 per tonne.

Following the sharp fall in oil prices, which has seen the price of WTI crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) drop from $98.53 per barrel on October 1st to $63.22 at the close of trading yesterday, oil companies have asked the government to cut the export duty again in November.

Sakovich said the average Urals crude price for the September to October period currently stood at $83-$84 per barrel, which effectively meant that oil duties would be reduced to $304-$309 per tonne from the start of December.

"If the Urals blend price averages $55-65 per barrel in the remaining five days, the monitoring price will be $82.87-83.98 per barrel and reach the limiting duty of $304 to $309 per a ton,” Sakovich said.

Tax on light refined products would be reduced to $217-$220 per tonne, whilst fuel oil would be taxed at $117-$119 per tonne, according to the Finance Ministry official.

Sakovich stressed that the export duties announced for the December to January two-month period were maximum levels, and suggested that oil duties may even be reduced below $300 per tonne, given the precedent in October.

"The key thing is whether oil sticks below $60 in November. If it does, there might be some concessions," he said.