Russia’s 2013 Oil Output Highest In Post-Soviet Era
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, January 2, 2014 5:31 EST
World energy power Russia said on Thursday that its oil output hit a post-Soviet high in 2013 while natural gas production at its vast Gazprom holding slipped for the second straight year.
The mixed figures — highlighted by yet another dip in oil exports outside ex-Soviet territories — point to lingering problems in a sector that accounts for about half of Russia’s budget revenues.
It also remains instrumental to President Vladimir Putin as he battles a rapid economic slowdown that has put a strain on the commitment to broader social spending he made when re-elected to a third term in 2012.
The Russian energy ministry’s reporting unit said oil and gas condensate production grew by 1.0 percent last year to reach a new record of 523.3 million tonnes (10.51 million barrels per day).
Analysts and Russian media reports attributed the jump to soaring output by state-owned Rosneft — the world’s largest publicly traded oil firm — at the mammoth Vankor field it launched in Siberia in 2009.
MORE...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/02/russias-2013-oil-output-highest-in-post-soviet-era/