The start of several greenfield projects will help Russian oil producers boost crude production next year, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said in its report on Monday, according to TASS.
“In 2019, Russian oil companies have the potential to increase production through greenfield development. Incremental production of oil, NGLs, and condensate could come from several projects, such as Uvat, East-Siberian, Vankorneft, Messoyakha and Yamal LNG,” OPEC said.
Three new projects of Russia’s Rosneft company are expected to come on stream for oil production in the fourth quarter of this year, OPEC said. The Tagulskoye field is set to start operations in November 2018. The Russkoye field and phase 2 of the Srednebotuobinskoye field are scheduled for startup in December of this year.
In July 2018, oil production by Russia stood at 11.27 million barrels per day, which is 50 thousand barrels per day less than in October 2016, OPEC’s monthly review showed.
“Russian oil production amounted to 11.25 million barrels per day in June, which is 100 thousand barrels per day more compared to the previous month. The volume of oil production in July, according to estimates, increased by 20 thousand barrels per day compared to June – to an average of 11.27 million barrels per day,” the organization notes.
OPEC expects average oil production in Russia to be 11.15 million barrels per day in 2018 and 11.17 million barrels daily in 2019.
Last month, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said his country is considering the creation of a “new OPEC-Russia organization”, which may start work on 1 January 2019.
The minister specified that the organization will retain the functions of regulating oil production and will be able to cut it again, if necessary.
“We plan to start this mechanism on January 1, 2019. We will discuss it at a ministerial meeting,” Novak said. He added that the options for the name of the new organization’s name have yet to be chosen, as well as the location of the headquarters.
