Putin Says Russia Will Continue to Lift Oil, Gas Exports

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Saturday that his country would continue to increase its oil and gas exports to world markets, and to make itself more welcoming to foreign investment in general.

His comments come at the end of a week in which global oil prices have hit yet another record high and at a time when Russia’s output of oil appears to be stalling in the wake of the judicial campaign against the stricken OAO Yukos (YUKO.RS).

Putin told a gathering of top-level executives from U.S. companies that although Russia’s priority is to diversify its economy from volatile commodities such as oil, it will continue to raise hydrocarbon output – both from the mainland and projects in the Barents Sea and the Far East island of Sakhalin.

He noted that the U.S. should in the future be able to import more than 1 million barrels a day of oil from Russia.
MarketWatch