Russia pumped 10.26 million barrels per day of crude oil in July, matching a post-Soviet high recorded in May and retaining the title of top producer as its closest rival, Saudi Arabia, rapidly closes the gap. Russia also pumped 10.26 million barrels per day (bpd) in October 2011. The June rate was 10.2 million bpd.
By comparison, Saudi Arabia pumped as much as 9.8 million bpd in June, an increase of as much as 900,000 bpd in response to the loss of Libyan supply after it failed to persuade Opec of the need for a co-ordinated increase. But while the kingdom had the spare capacity to ramp up production by nearly 10 percent in a month, Russia's top oil companies are struggling to grow by just a few percent a year.
Top Russian producer Rosneft said it hit a record 2.4 million barrels per day in July, with an increase in output at its new Vankor field and extra drilling at its biggest unit, Yugansk, accelerating its current growth rate to 1.5-2 percent. Russia's Soviet-era oil heartland is on the decline, and the government is working to provide incentives to coax capital-intensive new fields on line and staunch the declines. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, Russia's oil tsar, has pitched the case for multi-billion dollar foreign investment in harsh, remote new oil provinces as a means to guarantee supply during times of shock. Natural gas output stood at 48.40 billion cubic metres, down from 50.67 bcm in June, a fall of 7.6 percent on a daily basis.
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