Russia’s foreign exchange and gold reserves increased by 0.1% from April 3 to April 10 to $564.9bn, the central bank said in a statement on April 16.

The breakdown of reserves was: FX $433.1bn, the IMF’s SDRs $6.631bn, IMF reserves $3.904 and gold $119.84bn.

The increase came despite the average price of oil falling dramatically over the last three months from $63.7 for the Brent mix in January through $55.7 in February, $32 in March and $21.2 over the first 15 days of April. The dependence of reserves on oil prices has largely decoupled in recent years thanks to the fiscal ruble that siphons off any oil revenue above $42 per barrel to the National Welfare Fund (NWF). However, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) suspended the rule in April for a month following the collapse of prices at the start of March.

In 2019, Russia’s total foreign exchange and gold reserves grew 18.3% to $554.4bn as of January 1.

Foreign currency includes the foreign currencies of the CBR and the Finance Ministry in paper money, reverse repo agreements with non-residents, accounts with foreign banks rated at least A by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s and at least A2 by Moody’s, as well as government or other bonds issued by non-residents with similar ratings.

In related news, after selling off most of Russia’s holdings in US treasury bills last year, the CBR has started modest purchases of these bonds again.

Russia’s investment in the US treasury bonds rose 19% to $12.58bn in February, reported PRIME on April 16, according to the data from the US Department of the Treasury.

Of the total, $8.277bn are short-term bonds and $4.309bn are long-term bonds. Japan remained the largest US bondholder with $1.268 trillion, China was the second with $1.092 trillion.