According to the schedule, Transneft’s oil exports to China via the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline will increase by 2.2 percent to 3.79 million tons, while Primorsk on the Baltic Sea will export 17.4 million tons in October-December, up 3 percent from the third quarter.

Crude oil exports via the Druzhba pipeline to Europe are expected to increase by around 7 percent to 16.94 million tons.

Those increases come at the expense of the Black Sea port of Tuapse, where exports will fall by nearly two-thirds to 240,000 tons, and the Pacific port of Kozmino, where loadings will fall by 6.4 percent to 3.5 million tons.

In the last three months of the year crude oil shipments from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, Russia’s second-largest after Primorsk, will be cut by 9.2 percent as the port is often shut by winter storms.

The overall reduction is ill-timed for the Russian government, which is poised to increase public spending ahead of parliamentary elections in December and a presidential poll in March.

At the same time, a key revenue-earner, the export duty charged on crude oil, will fall in October under the first of a series of changes to the oil industry’s fiscal regime aimed at boosting returning output to growth.

The Finance Ministry has set the duty at a reduced rate according to its plan for October, though the changes have yet to be fixed in law. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin on Friday blamed the Energy Ministry for failing to provide the necessary documents.

Supplies to Czech Republic and Poland will jump, in part because of an increase in allocations to TNK-BP, half-owned by BP which was barred from exporting its usual contract volumes to Poland in the second and third quarters.

The cut it its Druzhba allocations coincided with a dispute with TNK-BP’s local shareholders over BP’s attempt to partner with state oil company Rosneft in a landmark Arctic drilling deal, which failed and went to ExxonMobil instead.

Shipments to Poland will rise 13.8 percent, while supply to Czech Republic will jump almost by a third.