Russian Oil Supply

Russia has come to the forefront of hopes for increasing world oil supplies and abating historically high prices. While increases over the 8.4 million barrels of oil per day produced in 2003 can be expected, long-term continuation of the dramatic growth witnessed from 1999 to 2003 cannot. Russia's resource base, while large, bears a cost structure and technological challenges that will soon impinge on producers' ability to accomplish large annual increases in output. An understanding of Russian oil supply is reached in Russian Oil Supplystarting with an investigation of the petroleum geology of the nation's two principal producing basins: the Volga-Ural and West Siberia. To this is added a review of the engineering technologies applied over the Soviet period and the impact they continue to have on productive capacity today. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 generated a fundamental change in the economics of Russian oil production. The transition from a command to largely market-driven industry created an opportunity to study supply in response to changes since independence in the after-tax net income earned at the wellhead by oil companies. That analysis provides an objective foundation for bounding near-term responses in supply to higher world prices and changes in the controlled price of oil on the domestic market. The performance of top major Russian oil companies that dominate the industry is highly varied. Examination of their asset bases and management strategies allow identification of critical issues before these companies and their latitude in meeting them. The lack of a robust 'independent' sector among Russian producers is seen as a significant impediment to exploitation of resources located in a very large number of discovered but undeveloped fields. The most important problem facing the Russian government and producers is not whether production can be increased, but should it. Domestic consumption, over-stimulated by controlled prices, and pursuit of ever-higher physical oil production do lead to a sustainable equilibrium. The Russian government and industry have not yet, however, reached a durable consensus on how much production, consumption, and exports is 'enough'.