Oil regions of russia: features of their identification

Abstract

The article proposes the author’s methodology for determining oil regions. The authors investigated various approaches to the identification of such regions, including the possibility of applying methods for determining resource-type regions to oil regions by replacing aggregated indicators for minerals with indicators specifically for oil. The shortcomings of the criteria underlying the proposed approaches have been identified (the most frequent are the availability of information only on minerals without oil details, as well as the provision of data on the region of registration of parent companies, often different from the regions in which the real activity takes place). When choosing the methodology and criteria for identifying oil regions, the authors recommend taking into account the special role of the federal center as one of the key actors in the formation of regional policy, since the leading role of the center is necessary in the management of the industry, which has a decisive impact on the federal budget and the economy of the country as a whole, and is also inevitable in the conditions of centralization of power and financial flows. A variant of determining the oil region through the share of the region in question in the total tax on the extraction of mineral redeemable (oil), payable to the federal budget by all regions, is proposed.