Stop without demand: why Russia is not increasing oil production

Marcel Salikhov, President of the Institute for Energy and Finance, gave a comment to the Izvestia newspaper about oil production in Russia.

- Indeed, the production of gas condensate has been declining in recent months compared to April. In particular, Gazprom's production from April to July (data for August is not yet available) decreased by 56 thousand barrels per day, - Marcel Salikhov said. - This is mainly a seasonal factor, since natural gas production has a pronounced seasonality due to demand. Therefore, gas production increases in the winter months and decreases in the summer months. Production at PSA projects has also declined in recent months. The production of oil companies in general is increasing. The only major exception is Bashneft, which reduced production in August by 5% compared to April (-13 thousand barrels per day).

Nevertheless, the interlocutor of Izvestia also noted the objective reasons why the production of oil with condensate remained stable, and the oil companies are not increasing production as quickly as they could under the terms of the OPEC + agreement.

- This may be indicative of operational difficulties in recovering production from wells that were decommissioned last year. According to the available data, it is difficult to estimate, but by the end of the year, it will probably become clear how quickly Russian production can return to the indicators of early 2020 (about 11.3 million barrels per day of oil with condensate production).