The twin traumas of an economy-crippling oil price collapse and Western sanctions hobbling energy firms will not deflect Russia from keeping oil output near a record high this year, companies, officials and analysts say.
Russia will likely continue to fend off Saudi Arabia as the world’s top oil producer until a predicted longer-term output decline starts to take hold later this decade.
A defiant government and giant energy firms see little impact for now from the headwinds and, crunching the data with a skeptical eye, analysts agree.
Oil output hit a post-Soviet high of 10.58 million barrels per day (bpd) last year, with …read more
Source: Voice of America
