Russia is likely sustain record crude oil production in the range of 10.6 million barrels per day in spite of low prices, analyst Anna Belova concludes in a recent market analysis.
“The behaviour of main crude suppliers in the near term will determine if the global supply will equilibrate with the demand for oil,” she writes. “However, suppliers differ in their ability to respond to price changes and in their longer-term intentions to secure market share. Russia, the world’s leading energy producer, has been steadily increasing its crude output. Since the factors behind the past production increase are expected to remain in place, Russian crude output is likely to continue at current levels in the near term.”
Belova details key factors behind the rise in Russian oil production, concluding that “the factors that were behind a decade-long production surge are expected to sustain Russian production” over the next five years.
