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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