MOSCOW: Russia plans to slash oil production by 200,000 tonnes in March, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday. “We will endeavor to [reduce oil production in March] by 200 thousand [tonnes],” the minister said. Russia will perform the reduction at “a higher-than-anticipated rate,” he added. Oil production cut may reach 300,000 tonnes by the end of April, Novak said. Russia reduced oil production by 117,000 barrels daily as of the end of January, the energy minister said earlier.
Russian Energy Ministry is expecting a downward correction in investments into the natural gas vehicle (NGV) fuel market by 2020, department director Maxim Lobanov told TASS in an interview. “Speaking about figures by 2020, these are equal to 160 bln rubles ($2.7 bln). They may be slightly revised downward at present. Nevertheless, plans of infrastructure producing companies are nevertheless focused on annual implementation of 50-70 projects. We see that even independent gas producers join major players,” the official said. “As far as coming years are concerned, much will depend on the domestic economic situation at large because [vehicle] fleet upgrade plans are directly linked to it,” Lobanov added. It was reported earlier acquisition of about 47,000 NGV fuel powered vehicles and construction of more than 560 NGV fuel retail sites was forecasted by 2020.
