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Page added on January 2, 2013
Russia’s 2012 Oil Output Rises to Post-Soviet Record on Prices
Russia’s crude oil and condensate output in 2012 climbed 1.1 percent from a year ago to a post- Soviet record as companies maximized supply to take advantage of an increase in prices.
Russia, the world’s biggest energy producer, pumped 10.38 million barrels a day last year, up from 10.27 million in the previous year, according to data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU- TEK unit. Daily oil output was 10.485 million barrels in December, little changed compared with revised data from November and up 1.6 percent from the same period in 2011, the agency said in an e-mail today.
Russia’s government is reviewing the export duty structure, with plans to propose incentives for offshore and unconventional oil production by the end of the first quarter. President Vladimir Putin has set a goal of maintaining output at more than 10 million barrels a day. The country pumped above that level in September 2009 for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Oil exports declined to 5.14 million barrels a day last month, a 0.3 percent decrease from November and 1.8 percent less than in December 2011.
Brent oil on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, a benchmark for more than half of the world’s supply, averaged a record $111.68 a barrel last year, up 0.7 percent from 2011.
Russia’s annual natural-gas production in 2012 was 655 billion cubic meters, down 2.3 percent from 2011, according to the data. December output rose 4.1 percent compared to a year earlier, to 65.8 billion cubic meters.
Soviet-era crude and condensate output in Russia peaked at 11.4 million barrels a day in 1987, BP Plc data show.
7 Comments on "Russia’s 2012 Oil Output Rises to Post-Soviet Record on Prices"
BillT on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 12:36 pm
Funny how our ‘enemies’ seem to be holding all the good cards, while we (US) are borrowing money from them to stay in the game.
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 12:37 pm
Oil will become the black gold of the future. One barrel contains the labour equivalent of eight manyear and will remain to do so till the end of times or the end of the oil age, so there will be demand as long as real human labour will be vastly more expensive than oil. Garbage man costs maybe 25,000$/year times eight is 200,000$. Compare that with 100, 300, 500$, whatever per barrel. These days in Holland garbage is collected by a huge truck with one driver and a single worker positioning these big plastic rollable containers in a row on the sidewalk, after which a robot picks these containers up, two by two and lifts and empties them in the truck. Earlier there were at least four people carrying smaller garbage cans to the truck. Perfect example of technology/energy phasing out labour. And these garbage trucks will keep roling even at 300$ oil. Joe Sixpack by that time will no longer be driving and has to pay higher tax bills to the municipality which organizes garbage collection. Joe will take the bus or his bike.
Expect Russia’s relative power to increase with rising fuel prices, to be paid mainly by Europe.
GregT on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 3:03 pm
Arthur,
When oil gets to 300 dollars a barrel, there will be little garbage left for anyone to pick up. Joe Sixpack will be unemployed, as will most of us, and municipal governments will not be spending what little tax income they may have left, on garbage collection.
Think about it.
Look at what 100 dollar a barrel oil already looks like. 300 dollar a barrel oil would make the rest of the world look like Syria, or worse.
GregT on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 3:56 pm
Also, some Joe Sixpacks have already lost their jobs as municipalities streamlined operating costs by replacing human labor with machinery. Operating costs have soared with increased fuel prices.
Transit, where I live, is running a deficit already, and it is being subsidized by fuel taxes, property taxes, and tolls. When all of these sources of revenue dry up, forcing even more people to take transit, where is all of the money going to come from? User fees?
Arthur on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 4:39 pm
Greg, westerners simply live above their means. The next step will be a rapid implosion of incomes/salaries. And general car ownership wil vanish as a consequence. Garbage collection is an absolute necessity if you do not want to see your city swamped by rats and become desease ridden. Garbage collection can be done btw by people on food stamps. Or maybe there will be big containers for garbage, so everybody has to walk a few blocks to bring the garbage himself to a collection point. I visited Russia in 1994 and noticed a very efficient transport system… simply stand in the gutter as a sign that you are looking for a ‘taxi’ (30 year old Lada)… within a minute (in Moscow) some guy stops and asks where you want to go to see if it fits with the destinations of usually 1 or 2 other persons already occupying the ‘taxi’ (process could be further optimized using cheap location aware smart phones). Costed you 1$ for Russian or 5$ for Dutch people.lol (In Holland I currently pay 40$ for a similar distance in luxury Mercedes which you get anyway, when my car needs to go to the garage). Expect something like this to come to a place near you after a crash, if any.
GregT on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 6:14 pm
Arthur,
I agree, people here do live above their means. That is why debt levels are rapidly rising. Most people’s incomes here have been stagnant for over a decade, but they continue to spend like there is no tomorrow.
North America is much different than Europe, we have massive urban sprawl. The “average” commute time in my city is 45 minutes. On the highway. I know many who commute an hour and a half, each way. With our infrastructure as it is, transit can take up to twice the time of personal transportation. Our politicians are doing their best to enable growth as quickly as possible. In my municipality alone, our mayor intends to increase our population from 780,000 to 1,780,000 by 2020. So far, she is right on target. She is doing nothing, however, about upgrading our infrastructure.
We are already overrun with rats, they are everywhere. Garbage bins in the downtown core are always overflowing, and the growing mass of homeless do not make matters better.
Russia has a very different culture than we do here, and when they collapsed it wasn’t because of oil. They did not rely on a “just in time” delivery system for their staples, and they lived with, and took care of, each other. If you haven’t already read it, Dmitry Orlov has written a very good essay on the parallels and differences between the US and USSR pre and post collapse.
It can be found here:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060105_soviet_lessons.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062805_soviet_lessons_part2.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071805_soviet_lessons_part3.shtml
To take a taxi from my home to downtown, where I work, is 75 dollars. If there is no traffic.
There will be a crash, it is only a matter of time. We are already planning for it at my work and have been for over a year now.
dissident on Wed, 2nd Jan 2013 7:15 pm
At “The Oil Drum” they have been predicting the imminent collapse in Russian oil production for several years and each year they get it wrong.
Anyway, the modern world economy cannot be saved by a few million barrels of oil production. This applies to Canada and its tar sands. You either supply the market with enough to meet its needs or you have no market to supply. This is why all the journalists who are high on the Bakken and other “non-conventional” should get off the crack.