MOSCOW: Russia’s oil output was unchanged in February from January at 11.11 million barrels per day (bpd), signalling a pause in Moscow’s efforts to curb production as part of a global deal, Energy Ministry data showed on Thursday. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other large oil producers led by Russia, agreed to reduce their total oil output by almost 1.8 million bpd in the first half of this year in order to support weak prices of oil, their key source of revenues.
Of that, Russia pledged to cut 300,000 bpd, while reaching that mark gradually with 200,000 bpd of reduction in the first quarter. This is compared to output of more than 11.2 million bpd in October, taken as the baseline for the global deal on oil production cuts. In January, Russia cut output by around 100,000 bpd month-on-month, its first reduction since August. In tonnes, oil output reached 42.434 million in February versus 46.992 million in January. According to Reuters calculations, Russia’s cut from the October level reached 100,000 bpd in February, resulting in a compliance of just 33 percent. By contrast OPEC compliance is 94 percent, due to a steep reduction by Saudi Arabia. Reuters uses a barrels/tonnes ratio of 7.33.
Russian oil pipeline exports in February declined to 4.311 million bpd from 4.409 million bpd in the first month of the year. Last month, all the three top Russian oil producers, Rosneft, Lukoil and Surgutneftegaz, have all reduced their output. However, Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Kremlin energy champion Gazprom, boosted its production by 1.4 percent, while output of so-called small producers edged up by 0.1 percent. Russian gas production was at 58.53 billion cubic metres (bcm) last month, or 2.09 bcm a day, versus 66.11 bcm in January.
