Opec be warned: Russia prepares for oil at $40

It looks like the Bank of Russia knows something the rest of the world doesn't.

As the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies prepare to review their production cuts, the central bank of the world's biggest energy exporter is hunkering down for years of oil near $40 a barrel.

While analysts in a Bloomberg survey see the price of benchmark Brent crude -which trades at a small premium to Russia's Urals export blend -rising 16% from current levels by the end of the year, oil's 10% decline in March alone amid supply woes is making the market nervous.

Russia might only add to those jitters. “The finance ministry, the cabinet and the central bank are leaning on the cautious side in terms of their expectations regarding growth, driven still to a large degree by oil,“ said Piotr Matys, an emerging-market currency strategist at Rabobank in London. “It's better to be conservative and be surprised on the upside than too optimistic and end up disappointed.“