Natural Resources
The natural resources potential of Russia accounts for over 20% of the world's reserves.
- Natural resources used by the economy of Russia represent 95.7% of national wealth.
- Russia is ranked 1st in the world by gas reserves, sharing 32% of the world's reserves, and holds 30% of world production.
- Russia is second in oil production, providing 10% of world production.
- It holds third place in coal reserves, with 22 coal basins and 115 fields.
- Foreign countries receive 300 million tons of oil and around 250 billion cubic meters of gas, just from Russia.
Russia is one of the world's top oil and gas producers, and they are also a top exporter of metals, such as steel and primary aluminum, as shown above. Russia is a country that relies on commodity exports and have an export-oriented economy. Russia, however, has the risk of being vulnerable to fluctuations in the business cycle that result from volatile changes in global prices. If they are relying on the purchasing power of other countries, and something decreases that purchasing power, they might not be able to export as much in one year that they did in another year. At that point as well, Russia would have to make sure they are not importing too much goods to end up having a negative effect on their GDP.