The Central Bank is considering easing the requirements for the sale of foreign currency earnings by exporters, and the European Commission has presented the member states with an analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree on paying for gas from Russia in rubles – these and other important news for Thursday morning, April 14, in our daily review.

The Central Bank is considering easing requirements for the sale of foreign currency earnings by exporters, studying options for a “more flexible approach,” Vedomosti reported, citing a representative of the regulator. According to him, the Central Bank is attentive to the proposals of market participants and mitigates currency control measures where possible.

The European Commission presented to the member states an analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree on payment for gas from Russia in rubles and warned that its implementation would violate sanctions against Russia, Bloomberg reports citing an informed source. The source explained that the new procedure would give “full control to the Russian state” over “when the deal will be finalized and at what point the buyer will be released from its obligations.” It will also allow Moscow to regulate the exchange rate to its advantage.

Australia has imposed restrictions against 14 entities from Russia. Updates to the sanctions list were published on the country’s government website. Among those hit by the sanctions are Russian Railways, Alrosa (MCX:ALRS) and Gazprom (MCX:GAZP), among others.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has revised its forecast for oil demand in 2022 – the estimate has been lowered by 260,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 99.4 million bpd, Kommersant writes. This level of demand is 1.9 million bpd higher than it was last year. In Russia, according to IEA estimates, production in April has already decreased by 700,000 b/s, by the end of the month the decline may reach 1.5 mln b/s.

Colombia is ready to increase energy supplies to the European Union to replace Russian raw materials. The country is also ready to increase oil and gas production. This was stated by Colombian President Ivan Duque on air of the TV channel CNN. “Colombia today can increase coal production. We have some of the greatest resources in the world and we are not using them,” said Duque.