Russia will increase its crude export tax by 17 percent to a record on June 1, after oil prices rose in March and April.

The tax will be set at $398.10 a metric ton, the seventh consecutive increase, Alexander Sakovich, deputy head of the Finance Ministry's customs department, said by telephone in Moscow today. The current duty is $340.10 a ton, or $46.40 a barrel.


Russia revises its export taxes on crude and oil products every two months based on the previous two-month average price for Urals, the country's benchmark export blend. That stood at a record $102.76 a barrel in the period, Sakovich said. Oil prices have risen 68 percent since the same time last year.

``The government is addicted to high oil revenues,'' said Michael Teagarden, a sales trader at UBS AG in Moscow. ``Russia needs to wean itself from this windfall and encourage producers to spend the money developing new fields.''

Russia's oil production, which fell to an 18-month low of 9.72 million barrels a day in April, may decline this year for the first time in a decade as producers struggle with high costs, aging fields and new deposits in increasingly remote areas. The government is considering tax breaks to stimulate investment.