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Russia's Finance Ministry has announced that the country's export taxes on refined and crude products will increase to a record high from the beginning of next month.

Starting June 1 export tax on refined products will increase by 16 percent to $280.50 per tonne for light products such as gasoline and butane and $151.10 a tonne for heavy products such as fuel oil.

Crude export tax will increase from $340.10 per metric tonne (or $46.40 a barrel) to $398.10 per tonne Alexander Sakovich, deputy head of the Finance Ministry's customs department, told Bloomberg on Sunday.

This is the seventh consecutive increase in Russia's crude export tax, which is revised on a two-monthly basis and based on the previous two-month average price for Urals, the country's benchmark export blend.

Over the last two months, oil prices have continued to surge with the NYMEX light sweet crude contract for June delivery reaching an all-time high of $119.93 on April 28 and London's Brent Crude contract peaking at $116.74 on the same day of trading.

In April, Russia produced 9.72 million barrels of oil per day, the lowest level in 18 months. The country's oil production may decline this year for the first time in ten years as refiners are faced with high costs, aging oil fields and new deposits in increasingly remote areas.

Meanwhile, exports of Russian fuel oil have risen sharply according to recent data revealed by the Russian Finance Ministry. In April, the figure soared by more than 23 percent to 4.149 million barrels per day.

Japanese demand for Russian fuel oil is also said to have helped push up the price in recent months from $45-$50 a tonne in December 2007 to levels of $70-75 a tonne as Japanese and Chinese traders compete for Russian M100 fuel oil cargoes.

Imports of Russian M100 fuel oil into Japan almost doubled in March compared to February, according to Japan's Ministry of Finance. The world's third largest oil consumer imported a total of 275,803 tonnes of M100 fuel oil during the month of March, an increase of 135,803 tonnes on the previous month and the highest monthly total in at least 16 months.