{"id":4591,"date":"2015-01-18T08:35:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T13:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4591"},"modified":"2015-01-18T08:35:06","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T13:35:06","slug":"russia-abandons-petrodollar-by-opening-reserve-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=4591","title":{"rendered":"Russia Abandons PetroDollar By Opening Reserve Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Oil-Prices\/Russia-Abandons-PetroDollar-By-Opening-Reserve-Fund.html\" target=\"_blank\">Russia Abandons PetroDollar By Opening Reserve Fund<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>2015 has not been good to Russia; the spread between Brent and WTI is gone in anticipation of US exports and both benchmarks have flirted with sub $45 prices. A hostage to such prices, the ruble has yet to begin its turnaround and the state\u2019s finances are in extreme disarray. President Vladimir Putin\u2019s approval ratings remain sky-high, but his country has not faced such difficult times since he took office more than 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Since the turn of the new year the ruble has fallen over 13 percent and Russia\u2019s central bank and finance department are running out of options \u2013 to date, policy makers have\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2015-01-14\/russia-to-convert-currency-from-wealth-fund-to-arrest-ruble-drop.html\">hiked<\/a>\u00a0interest rates to their highest level since the 1998 Russian financial crisis and embarked on a 1 trillion-ruble ($15 billion) bank recapitalization plan to little effect. Their latest, and most dramatic, plan is to abandon the dollar \u2013 at least somewhat.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Energy\/Energy-General\/Putin-Battered-Bruised-But-Not-Broken.html\">Related:\u00a0Putin: Battered, Bruised But Not Broken<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In late December, the Kremlin\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/09b78bfa-8aa7-11e4-8e24-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3OuxYBYDW\">ordered<\/a>\u00a0five large state-owned exporters \u2013 including oil and gas giants Rosneft and Gazprom \u2013 to sell their foreign currency reserves. Specifically, the companies must bring their foreign reserves to October levels by the beginning of March. To comply, the exporters may have to sell a combined $1 billion per day until March. Private companies have not yet been hit by these soft capital controls, but have instead been advised to manage their foreign exchange maneuvers responsibly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia Abandons PetroDollar By Opening Reserve Fund 2015 has not been good to Russia; the spread between Brent and WTI is gone in anticipation of US exports and both benchmarks have flirted with sub $45 prices. A hostage to such prices, the ruble has yet to begin its turnaround and the state\u2019s finances are in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,5],"tags":[122,1775,626,693,694,834],"class_list":["post-4591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-geopolitics","tag-central-bank","tag-oil-price-collapse","tag-petrodollar","tag-ruble","tag-russia","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4592,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions\/4592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}