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Page added on April 2, 2015
Russian oil output hits post-Soviet high
Russia’s oil output hit a post-Soviet record high monthly in March, Energy Ministry data showed on Thursday.
Below are details about Russia’s oil output:
* Production reached an average of 10.71 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, up 0.6 percent from February, helped by higher production at Gazprom and Rosneft.
* Previous monthly high of 10.67 million bpd was posted in December.
* Russia’s oil production hit an all-time peak of 11.41 million bpd in 1988 when it was still part of the former Soviet Union, according to the International Energy Agency. Russia accounted for 90 percent of Soviet output.
* In 1991, in the final days of the Soviet Union, Russia’s output fell to 9.24 million bpd, off 19 percent from the 1988 peak. Many analysts say the slump and a drop in prices contributed to the fall of the 70-year-old Communist empire.
* In 1996, when Boris Yeltsin was re-elected as Russia’s president, oil production went into a three-year period of stagnation amid under-investment and slowing demand.
* Output fell by about 1 percent in 2008 to 9.8 million bpd, its first decline in a decade, as crude prices collapsed as a consequence of the global financial crisis.
* Output in September 2009 exceeded 10 million bpd for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has stayed above that mark ever since.
* In 2010 Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer as new fields were launched, including Vankor, Uvat and Talakan.
15 Comments on "Russian oil output hits post-Soviet high"
Plantagenet on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 6:46 pm
If Russia won’t cut their oil production to stop the oil glut, and OPEC won’t cut their oil production to stop the oil glut, then the US will have to cut its oil production.
With 50,000 layoffs so far just in Texas and a drastic fall in active rigs, US oil production should be heading down any month down.
Makati1 on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 8:14 pm
Plantagenet, the American companies are not able to voluntarily cut their cash flow … er … oil recovery because the banks have a gun in their backs. Debt does not allow much freedom of action.
Also, Russia needs the money, and may have a bit of US ‘pay back’ in there. The hurt is returning to the US in larger and larger amounts these days. I would say that Russia is less ‘isolated’ today than before the US sponsored Ukraine coup.
Nony on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 8:23 pm
What about all the peakers who keep talking the Russian production down? For the last 20 years. More peaker screw-ups?
rockman on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 8:47 pm
As has been pointed just now and many times before cash flow is KING. Just as the simple fact that the oil sellers don’t set the prices of oil…the buyers, the refineries do. The only control the producers have is how much oil they sell.
Which brings up a side bar: US operators delaying frac’ng wells that have been drilled and cased beyond the normal lag time. So if they are doing that to push prices up then why haven’t we seen a dramatic decrease in US oil production from existing PRODUCING WELLS? Holding back the addition of NEW production wouldn’t have nearly the effect of companies choking back EXISTING producing wells and immediately putting upward pressure on prices.
IOW waiting to push prices back up by not adding new wells would take many months. After all the cornies keep pointing out higher oil production even with the rig count drop. But now we all understand this new production is coming from wells drilled late last year. But if the companies wanted to push prices back up why turn these new wells on at those high initial rates? Which they obviously haven’t been doing as witnessed by shale production continuing to ramp up at the same time the rig count collapsed.
Which brings us full circle as to why oil producers rarely hold back production: to max cash flow regardless of the price of oil.
Jim on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 9:01 pm
I’d be curious to know how many businesses opened up near the fracking oil rigs.You know anything from stores to oil services.
Anyone read anything on this?
Poor souls.
Jimmy.
Perk Earl on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 9:04 pm
10.71 mbd?!
I remember a well respected poster (I’ll be nice enough not to specify) on The Oil Drum back in 2007 claiming Russia production was at peak, with graphs, and would soon begin declining. Well, here we are in 2015, 8 years later and Russia’s still chalking up new production records!
Similarly ‘Twilight in the Desert’ published in circa 2005 suggested SA would soon begin declining. But here we are in 2015 and still the Saudi’s produce over 10mbd!
So how can such well connected people be so far off?
roman on Thu, 2nd Apr 2015 11:21 pm
All that “oil glut” can be stored in Plant’s skull.
Speculawyer on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 1:13 am
Thanks for the cheap oil, Putin!
Northwest Resident on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 1:41 am
“All that “oil glut” can be stored in Plant’s skull.”
No space available.
Defender of Koch Bro’s, denier of oligarchical control of not just American but global politics, glutster in chief, shill for anti-Obama and pro-oil interests — the active peanut that is squeezed into that small brain cavity takes up all available space.
Anyway, the oil glut isn’t really “oil”, just something they decided to call oil, purpose being to convince people we have more oil than we really do. Gotta keep the investment bucks pouring in. Plant does his part to keep that truth obscured.
And the management of this website does its part to provide ample exposure for opinion manipulators like Plant.
Rodger Olsen on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 2:17 am
Odd, weren’t the sanctions supposed to reduce oil output by denying Russia access to technology and financing?
I guess that didn’t work.
rockman on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 6:07 am
Jim – “…how many businesses opened up near the fracking oil rigs.” If you mean non-oil patch businesses not many but a big increase in activity existing businesses but for relatively small purchases: food, cloths, bars, motel rooms. The two really big opportunities in the Eagle Ford trend were selling water and leasing land. Water in S Texas belongs to the surface owners. They made many tens of $millions selling those rights to frac’ng ops.
The other was providing land and warehouse space to stage equipment and materials. While there were service companies with shops in the trend hundreds of new players moved in. I heard of one construction company that closed its yard in Arkansas and moved all their equipment to S Texas to build drill sites.
rockman on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 6:19 am
Earl – “So how can such well connected people be so far off?” Besides the basic mistake of making predictions in the first place they typically failed to make clear what ASSYMPTIONS they used to make those prediction. If some had said oil production wasn’t going to increase if we ASSUMED oil would stay at $30/bbl then you couldn’t criticize them when production increased when oil prices tripled.
And now the cornies face the same problem. In particular those that gave most of the credit to new trends and tech and not to the price jump. They are about to take a big bite of the inaccurate prediction sh*t sandwich. LOL.
Nony on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 8:32 am
Rock (as usual) is confused. He wants to kill a strawman by saying fracklog (drilled well, waiting for completion) is (a) trying to affect price and (b) wonders why flowing barrels of oil not stopped. But he’s confused himself by not READING the actual articles on the topic and UNDERSTANDING them. So he argues against something no one is asserting (plus misunderstanding decision based economics).
1. No one (intelligent) is asserting that producers wait for completion in the hope of affecting price. They are RESPONDING to the futures curve (and lowering completion costs), not trying some coordinated action.
2. The decision to wait with completion is just like the decision to not even drill a well (look at declining rig counts, drilling HAS fallen off). For wells that are already dug, their is a decision if to complete it or not (can be half the costs). Often once the well is dug (sunk cost), completion makes sense. However, given the contango forward curve (i.e. an arbitragable future price that is higher), PLUS the investment in the completion, PLUS the declining costs of completion with time, it made sense for companies to wait the completion.
And then the increase in completion backlog itself (happening at a time with less drilling) PROVES just by factual numbers that E&P companies were doing some fracklog creation.
Perk Earl on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 3:40 pm
“..ASSYMPTIONS…”
“And now the cornies face the same problem. In particular those that gave most of the credit to new trends and tech and not to the price jump. They are about to take a big bite of the inaccurate prediction sh*t sandwich. LOL.”
Agreed on both counts, Rock. Should be great lol entertainment watching them slowly but surely eat that hard to stomach sandwich.
Makati1 on Fri, 3rd Apr 2015 6:56 pm
Predicting the future based on the past is no longer (if it ever was) valid. We are in uncharted waters and way off the map. Buckle up!