Under the radar: Russia's oil production rises to record 10 million barrels per day

Posted Oct 2nd 2009 5:45PM by Joseph Lazzaro
Filed under: Russia, Oil

Under the radar: Some trends are obvious enough and visible to all investors. Others are more-subtle, but are just as potent, and these often slip 'under the radar.'

Case in point: Russia's oil production rose by about 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 10.01 million bpd in September -- a new monthly record for the nation, Reuters reported Friday, citing Russian Energy Ministry data.

Russia leads the world in oil production, but it has more mature fields and less proved reserves than second-place producer Saudi Arabia. Oil traded Friday afternoon down $1.12 to $69.73 per barrel.

Provided Russia can find and develop new domestic oil fields to replace its maturing oil fields, the benefit for the global economy is obvious enough: more oil produced outside of OPEC. OPEC, which accounts for about 40% of the world's daily oil supply, utilizes production limits and has been an impediment to the creation of a free market in oil, in which all producers in the world produce as much as they want.

Russia is not a member of OPEC, and on Thursday Russia President Dmitry Medvedev indicated the nation has no interest in tactics that would boost oil's price to even higher levels than today's $70-range. "Russia has no interest in an endlessly high oil price. If it were to cost that much, we'd never change the structure of our economy," Medvedev said at a meeting on the farm industry, Reuters reported.

Tags: dmitry medvedev, DmitryMedvedev, oil, OPEC, russia