On Friday, April 7, the Russian ruble fell to its lowest level against both the dollar and the euro since April 2022.
Traders said the ruble was under pressure from a range of issues, including sales of Western assets to domestic investors, which boosted demand for the dollar, and lower oil prices in March, which cut into export earnings.
Earlier it was reported that Shell (a Russian company) had transferred US$1.21 billion to Shell in order to acquire a stake in the “Sakhalin 2” natural gas project. The ruble-dollar currency pair trades only about $1 billion a day, compared with more than $3 billion a day before the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The trader said the current market expectation is that the ruble is expected to strengthen against the dollar in the coming days and weeks as Russian companies buy rubles for tax purposes and against the backdrop of higher oil prices.