MOSCOW, October 6 (RAPSI) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a bill that allows the use of extra oil and gas revenues to replenish the Reserve Fund and cover shortfalls in the budget starting on January 1, 2015, TASS reported on Monday.

According to current budgeting rules, revenues over an oil price of $96 per barrel are deposited into the Reserve Fund.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Lavrov said earlier that the rule should be amended to allow the direct use of revenues to cover shortfalls in the budget.

This amendment will give an opportunity to use about 500 billion rubles ($12.6 billion) in 2015, according to Andrey Makarov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on budget and taxes. 

Based on the draft federal budget for 2015-2017, it is estimated that the amount of annual foreign loans will reach $7 billion. In 2015, the net budget revenue will amount to $3.7 billion while the remaining amount will be spent on servicing and repaying the foreign debt. The 2016 and 2017 net revenue is estimated at $5.7 billion and $3.7 billion respectively. In 2014 no foreign loan agreements have been arranged.

Regarding domestic loans, the draft budget includes an estimated $7 billion in domestic loans in 2015, $7.4 billion in 2016 and $13.7 billion in 2017. In 2014, the value of domestic loans was reduced by $8.7 billion, from $12.1 billion to $3.3 billion.