The government is planning to raise budget revenues next year, betting on an oil price of at least $50 a barrel, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Monday.

The figure -- a significant improvement on the prediction of $41 oil for this year's budget -- came immediately after a warning from President Dmitry Medvedev to use more caution in making forecasts because the economy is sliding into a deeper recession than expected.

Medvedev summoned top Cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Kudrin, to the Kremlin on Monday to urge "conservatism" in economic forecasts and spell out other budget proposals for the next three years.

Putin, who preceded Medvedev as president, leaned back in his chair and looked down expressionlessly, as he often does during Medvedev's speeches. The other ministers sat stiffly in front of their notepads as they listened.

Speaking after the meeting, Kudrin said the $50 oil price was a conservative and tentative prediction. He declined to offer the optimistic forecast.

A barrel of the benchmark Brent blend of oil for June delivery is now worth $59. Russia's main Urals blend, which Kudrin referred to, trades at a discount of some $3 to Brent.

Oil revenues constitute about a third of the country's budget, which prompted the government to revise the budget for the current year after the oil price collapsed in the second half of last year.

The forecast of $50 for a barrel of Urals next year is realistic, said Alexei Kokin, an analyst at investment company Metropol.

Putin, speaking separately at a meeting of the Presidium, a trimmed-down Cabinet, said the government would seek to delay the final draft of next year's budget until Oct. 1. Under the law, it has to be submitted to the State Duma by Aug. 26.

The delay would allow for more precise calculations during the highly volatile economic situation, Putin said. He pointed to oil as one of the elusive factors for determining revenues, saying the price was rising despite the worsening condition of the global economy.

Kudrin, offering the latest estimate of how long the Reserve Fund would last, said it all would be gone next year if the budget deficit reached 5 percent of gross domestic product as planned.

"We will borrow, but we will have to spend it all anyway," Kudrin said, Itar-Tass reported.

He said separately after the Presidium that there was a risk that the government would collect 800 billion rubles ($26 billion) less in revenues this year than planned in the revised budget.

He previously said the fund, which holds most of the money that the government put aside from the record oil revenues in recent years, could cover part of the 2011 spending. The government will deposit money in the fund again later if oil revenues rise, he said Monday.

Russia may borrow $7 billion on the market next year and $10 billion in 2011, but it won't ask the International Monetary Fund for a loan, he said.

The National Welfare Fund, which holds the rest of the oil money savings, will still have some funds left next year, Kudrin said.

Medvedev's budget proposals included a call for greater austerity. He specifically urged the government to refrain from giving pay raises to government-paid employees such as bureaucrats, doctors and teachers. The Cabinet will have to decide over the next three months what other spending it may postpone from the next year, said Arkady Dvorkovich, Medvedev's economic aide.

In a step away from the anti-crisis efforts, Medvedev also urged measures to combat tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption by introducing tax increases that would beat the inflation rate. He said the Cabinet must work to develop the pension system and support the disabled.

At the Presidium, Putin said the government would crack down on the country's offshore zones in order to collect more taxes. "We will, of course, continue a liberal economic policy, but liberalism and swindling are very far from being the same thing," he said, referring to such zones.