Russia produced 10.46 million bpd last month, up by 1.9 percent on March as OPEC+ relaxed its production cuts, Bloomberg reports, citing data from Russia's Energy Ministry.
Russia's production quota had been upped twice before April, by 65,000 bpd in February and March. It was then relaxed by 130,000 bpd for April. From this month to July, Russia will further increase its output by 114,000 bpd, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
OPEC+ in total will increase its oil production by 2 million barrels daily between May and July, signaling its belief in improving demand.
The production cuts were among the factors that drove Russia's oil exports lower in the first four months of the year, the Energy Ministry said, as quoted by TASS. Shipments of oil abroad declined by 17.2 percent over the four-month period and by 16.4 percent in April alone.
Russia's oil production fell from record highs last year for the first time in a decade due to its participation in the OPEC+ pact. Now, according to the Energy Ministry, output may never recover to pre-pandemic levels. It will improve from current levels, the ministry said, reaching 11.1 million bpd by 2029 but then starting to decline, reaching 9.4 million bpd by 2035.
Because of these projections, Russia needs to monetize its oil wealth while it can, or, as the head of the energy committee at the Russian parliament put it earlier this year, "Everything that can be produced should be produced while there is still demand to sell it."
This is the base-case or most likely scenario developed by the Energy Ministry. In its best-case scenario, the ministry sees Russia's oil production hit a peak of 12.8 million bpd by 2030 and only then begin to decline. In either scenario, a steady decline in output is imminent.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More
Comments
While the US shale oil industry’s reserves and also Saudi and Arab Gulf reserves are depleting fast with no possibility of replacing them, Russia has huge oil and gas reserves in the Arctic to sustain its oil and gas industry well into the future.
And while scenarios are merely tools to enable decision-makers to make enlightened decisions, some of the Russian Energy positive scenarios see Russia still producing 12.8 million barrels a day (mbd) by 2030.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London