Russia Not Finding New Oil Fields where Cost of Production is Less than Sale Price, ‘Vedomosti’ Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 12 – In 2023, Russian geologists identified fewer new oil fields than in any year of the last six; and most of those were either too small or too inaccessible to be profitable, Vedomosti reports. As a result, the production of new fields will amount to only one month of Russia’s domestic needs.

            This failure is forcing Russian oil producers to drill ever more wells in fields first developed in the Brezhnev era, the paper says; but even that has not been able to boost production by more than one percent (vedomosti.ru/business/articles/2024/04/12/1031371-prirost-zapasov-nefti-v-rossii-stal-minimalnim).

            What that means, experts in the field say, is that Russia has only “nine to 17 years” until there is “a complete exhaustion of profitable reserves of oil” and that any expansion in production will take place only if oil prices soar from their current levels or if Moscow is willing to subsidize such production while taking a loss.