Russia has successfully coped in the past and can now cope with the fall in oil prices. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said this in an interview with RIA Novosti.
According to him, in general, 2020 was a difficult year for Russia and the rest of the world, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic. He noted that with the advent of an effective coronavirus vaccine, there is hope for an economic recovery, but there is a lot of work to be done. Gorbachev called on the backdrop of the outbreak of the economic crisis to provide support to medium and small businesses so that people do not leave it.
The price of oil plummeted in early 2020 amid a pandemic and the collapse of the OPEC + deal. From the level of about $ 60, which was in 2019, the cost of Brent blend has collapsed to the level of about $ 30. In the second half of last year, the cost of raw materials began to gradually recover, but the price has not yet reached pre-crisis values. The past year has already been called the worst for oil companies in the past 10 years. As of January 11, 2021, the price of a barrel of Brent on the London ICE exchange is about $ 55, according to the data of the trading floor.
Mikhail Gorbachev headed the USSR from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. This period was marked by the global crisis of oil overproduction, as a result of which the cost of raw materials plummeted. The fall in the USSR’s export revenues from fuel was one of the reasons for the economic collapse and collapse of the union.