Russia matched post-Soviet record oil production recorded in May this year by pumping 10.26 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude in July, according to a Reuters report.
Russia also pumped 10.26 million barrels per day (bpd) in October 2010. The June rate was 10.2 million bpd.
The country remains the world’s top oil producer, with rival Saudi Arabia rapidly closing the gap as increased production comes on stream.
By comparison, Saudi Arabia pumped as much as 9.8 million bpd in June, an increase of as much as 900,000 bpd in response to the loss of Libyan supply after it failed to persuade OPEC of the need for a coordinated increase, said the report.
But while the kingdom had the spare capacity to ramp up production by nearly 10 percent in a month, Russia’s top oil companies are struggling to grow by just a few percent a year.
Rosneft said it hit a record 2.4 million bpd in July, with an increase in output at its new Vankor field and extra drilling at its biggest unit, Yugansk, accelerating its current growth rate to 1.5-2 percent. Russia’s Soviet-era oil heartland is on the decline, and the government is working to provide incentives to coax capital-intensive new fields on line and staunch the declines.
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Russia’s oil tsar, has pitched the case for multi-billion dollar foreign investment in
harsh, remote new oil provinces as a contingency in the event of supply shocks.
