Russia Tuesday consolidated its position as the world's top oil producer, raising its output forecast for this year to over 500 million metric tons, despite a call from the OPEC oil cartel to lower output.
Russia
Tuesday consolidated its position as the world's top oil producer, raising its
output forecast for this year to over 500 million metric tons, despite a call
from the OPEC oil cartel to lower output.
The Kremlin last year suggested it would coordinate output cuts with the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in a bid to bolster the global
price of crude, which collapsed from its 2008 peak.
But
Russia
proved unwilling to reduce output to support prices, instead increasing
production this year to a post-Soviet high of over 10 million barrels a day. Now
the oil cartel is stepping up efforts to convince
Moscow
to
slow down output growth.
"We think
Moscow
should put a break on its production," said OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla
Salem el-Badri, reiterating an OPEC view that has long fallen on deaf ears in
Moscow
.
As OPEC members cut output last year,
Russia
quickly snatched the gap in the market, causing ties with the oil group to
sour.
Russia
's oil
output stalled in recent years after a dramatic recovery following a collapse
that accompanied the fall of the
Soviet Union
. But
a string of new projects that came on stream in 2009 and this year, mainly in
East
Siberia
, has helped boost production once again.
The country produced 494 million tons of oil in 2009, 1.2% more than in 2008. This
year, production could top 500 million tons, or 10.04 million barrels a day,
Russia
's
Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said Tuesday. In January, the ministry
forecasted this year's production at 495 million tons.
Shmatko's prediction is based on a revised forecast for the ruble exchange rate
by
Russia
's
Economic Development Ministry.
"Previously we were quite certain that given the strengthening ruble and
the higher mineral extraction tax on oil, investment would decline and there
might be a drop in production. But now there is no such certainty,"
Shmatko said, according to the Interfax news agency.
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