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Page added on July 13, 2013
Mother (Russia) lode: Vast extent of oil, gas reserves revealed for first time
According to declassified data Russia holds 17 billion tons of oil and 48 billion cubic meters of gas. Moscow believes revealing the extent of the vast reserves will lead to a surge of investment in the extraction and production of hydrocarbons.
The country’s recoverable oil reserves in the C1 category (proven reserves) totals 17.8 billion tons; category C2 (preliminary estimated reserves) is 10.2 billion tons, according to data collected on January 1, 2012.
Meanwhile, gas reserves were equally bountiful at 48.8 trillion cubic meters C1 category; gas stores of the C2 category is estimated at 19.6 trillion cubic meters.
The Minister of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation Sergey Donskoy said the resource potential for these kinds of mineral resources remains one of the most significant in the world. “I am convinced that the opening of this data will give a powerful impetus to investment in reproduction and production of hydrocarbons,” he said. He also added that Russia’s potential for the mineral resources is one of the most significant in the world.
Russia’s available hydrocarbon potential will be able to provide the nation’s growing economy for 30 years, according to expert estimates put out by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and the Federal State Commission on Mineral Reserves.
Meanwhile, increased exploration of mineral resources consistently exceed the level of production, the minister said, noting that last year 49 oil fields were discovered.
Last week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government decree that removed the lid of secrecy on oil reserve data.
Earlier, President Putin, explained the necessary level of cooperation that exists between the domestic fuel and energy sector and foreign investors, called the former level of secrecy “an obvious anachronism.”
Putin also called on the development and approval of a new classification of Russian oil and gas reserves as close as possible to international standards.
Before the release of the official data Russia was placed second in the world by gas reserves after Iran, with 32.9 trillion cubic meters, and eighth by crude oil reserves, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and UAE, with 11.8 trillion cubic meters of oil.
11 Comments on "Mother (Russia) lode: Vast extent of oil, gas reserves revealed for first time"
cottager on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 12:31 pm
Dream on. Mother Russia has huge problems. ~80% of exports are hydrocarbons. Last large oil field was discovered more than 20 years ago, in Soviet times. Russia’s peak delayed because of chaos there in 90’s, but now it is around peak, decline is ahead.
Production of oil in Russia is expensive, distances are huge. If they included into reserves Arctic – good luck in waiting for investors, there is, for example, huge gas field there, but it needs around 15-40 bil.$$$ of investments.
So, Russia claimed it has lots of stuff, and now waiting for investors to step, old good maneuvre. As I sad – good luck.
cottager on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 12:48 pm
BTW, Mother Russia needs investment a lot. While they are shouting about huge reserves, not so loud they lowered tax on oil exports
http://novostey.com/business/news408139.html
From 448,6$ to 419,8$/tonn.
So companies have more free money to work in fields, and people are a bit more hunger.
BillT on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 1:38 pm
cottager, China will be happy to relieve them of that wealth and pay for it in Yuan. They have already arranged a huge deal and an agreement to cut the dollar out of the loop. With a country ~10 times the size of Europe or ~6 times the size of the US, much not exploited,yet. And, with the globe warming up, more of their area is livable. I doubt that many Russians are starving. That they don’t have all the techno junk is a plus for them.
cottager on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 2:13 pm
BillT, don’t be naive. Mother Russia is apocalyptic resource hungry country, not better than father KSA or brother Iran. Nigeria in the snows. So they stealed some billions of investments (they’re talking about this stealing “not to stand on knees before West”, well, they have nukes), and now stepped in, let’s invest, sheeplets. We have lots of hard to explore fields, and waiting for your money to feed our people. Invest, good luck 😉
shortonoil on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 2:14 pm
17 billion tonnes is 124 billion barrels, about 4.1 years at the present world consumption rate. Not much for the world’s largest producer (or very close second). Depletion is an ongoing phenomena we are very foolish to ignore!
rollin on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 3:32 pm
10.2 billion tons of oil is 75 billion barrels of oil. Much of that is continuous oil (think fracking), so assume huge drilling investments for only possible small percentage recovery. Probably only actually recover 30 billion max over 20 to 30 years, or about 1 billion barrels a year average for these newly developed fields. So this will extend their oil production a few more years on a longer tail.
Plantagenet on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 5:28 pm
Good to hear about these additional oil and NG resources in Russia. Shortonoil is quite wrong in his suggestion that these new reserves will be depleted in four years—-in actuality these new reserves will be providing energy for decades to come.
Kenjamkov on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 6:31 pm
Plantagenet I think you misunderstood Shortonoil. He meant if the whole World was consuming only Russian oil it would only last four years.
dissident on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 10:39 pm
cottager pulls “facts” out of his a**. Russia’s exports in 2012 were nearly 600 billion dollars and out of this amount oil and gas accounted for under 270 billion dollars. So total oil and gas exports were under 50% of the total. And for some reason the “Russia is doomed, while the west will prosper” drones assume that 100% of its oil and gas exports can disappear at any moment. You can keep on praying for the days of $11 per barrel oil, but you will not get your prayers granted until the day after the global economy collapses.
dissident on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 10:44 pm
BTW, mother Russia is developing fast neutron breeder reactors and has solid plans to deploy them after 2024 (e.g. the BN-1200) while anti-nuclear hysteria in the west prevents even replacement of decrepit units (c.f. the UK). When “doomed to fail” mother Russia will run out of oil and gas, it will have other reliable energy infrastructure.
MrColdWaterOfRealityMan on Sat, 13th Jul 2013 11:44 pm
So, about 125 billion barrels of oil? At current consumption rates, that extends the world’s oil supply by about 4 years and change. Hopefully, it’s high quality, high net energy return oil – unlike the fracked stuff or the crud oil from Canada.