Russia’s oil output this year is on course to top 480 million tonnes, or about 9.6m barrels per day (bpd), a Russian government source said.
The figure, which excludes gas condensate, is in line with Russia’s pledge to cut production by 500,000 bpd to 9.5m bpd from March until year-end, according to Reuters calculations and the source. “If you extrapolate for the whole year, production will be 480m tonnes,” the source said.
In 2022, Russia’s combined oil and gas condensate production rose to 535m tonnes (10.7m bpd). Condensate is excluded from the production quotas used by the Opec+ producers group for Russia.
Such production may reach around 520m tonnes (10.4m bpd) this year, taking some 40m tonnes of gas condensate into account.
That is significantly higher than official forecasts which put Russia’s expected 2023 oil and gas condensate production at between 490m and 500m tonnes (9.8m to 10m bpd).
“Russia’s oil demand has largely stabilised after the initial shock at the start of the war,” J P Morgan analysts said in a research note this month. “We believe demand is almost back to pre-war levels.”
They estimated Russia’s aggregate production (crude and condensate) at 10.8m bpd in March, down 250,000 bpd from February.
Russia’s oil production fell in April 2022 after the West imposed sanctions over what the Kremlin calls its military operation in Ukraine. However, since then Russia has been successful at selling its oil to China and India.
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