Russian oil production and exports decline

The daily Kommersant (Russia) today quoted a source close to the country's oil production in October, reaching 1.47 million tons a day, equivalent to 10.78 million barrels a day. This is down from 10.8 million barrels in September, according to Russian statistics agency Rosstat released last week.

The newspaper also reported that Russia's sea and pipeline oil exports fell 2% from September to about 640,000 tons a day (4.7 million barrels a day).

One of the reasons for this decline is the decrease in offshore production of the Sakhalin-1 project, due to the withdrawal of the US oil company ExxonMobil. After restarting, the output of this project is only half of the plan.

So far, Russia's oil production has not been affected by Western sanctions on Ukraine. However, European countries - the main buyers of Russian oil for the past few decades - will stop importing Russian oil from December 5 under the embargo of the European Union (EU).

From December 5, the EU will ban the import of most Russian crude oil, in order to block Russian financing for the military operation in Ukraine. From February 2023, the EU will embargo the transport of oil products from Russia.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) in August forecast that Russia's oil production will drop by 20% from the beginning of next year due to this ban. Specifically, about 1 million barrels of oil products and 1.3 million barrels of Russian crude oil per day will have to find new destinations.
Resource: Vnexpress