Russia’s Oil Output Falls in June, Extending Decline

(Bloomberg) — Russian oil production declined in June, bringing the world’s second-largest crude exporter closer to its first annual drop since 1998.

Production fell to 9.77 million barrels a day (40 million metric tons a month), 1 percent less than in June last year, according to data released by CDU TEK, the dispatch center for the Energy Ministry. Output rose 0.2 percent compared with May.


Russia’s production may have peaked as producers struggle with aging fields, rising costs and increasingly remote new deposits, senior executives at Moscow-based OAO Lukoil and TNK-BP, the country’s two-biggest independent oil companies, have said. The finance and energy ministries are developing tax-cut proposals in a bid to revive growth.

Crude oil exports via OAO Transneft, Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly, fell 1.3 percent compared with the same month last year.

Bloomberg