Russia's parliament Friday approved a tax cut which would save Russian oil majors billions of dollars as part of measures to boost production amid record prices, news agencies reported.
Deputies in the lower house voted in the third and final reading to raise the tax-free threshold on oil production from $9 a barrel to $15 a barrel from 2009, Interfax reported.
The cut was part of a larger package of measures to help the country's oil producers.
Together they will save Russian oil producers 130 billion rubles ($5.5 billion) and help to boost production, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said during a visit to Turkmenistan.
"We anticipate that extraction volumes will be maintained and even increase" thanks to the measures, Shmatko told journalists in the capital Ashgabat.
"We expect the money to be spent on the development of new deposits," he said, adding that the rules were due to come into force Jan. 1.
The measures must be approved by the upper house of parliament and signed into force by President Dmitry Medvedev, but both steps are widely seen as formalities.
Russia is the world's second biggest producer and exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia but production levels have leveled off in recent months, with companies blaming high taxes for undercutting fresh investment.