Russian crude oil production (red) and crude oil exports {black)
Image by Plazak
Oil production in the Russian Federation is only now getting back to Soviet levels. The Russian energy ministry declared in 2019 that oil production reached a post-USSR record.
Russia’s oil production in 2019 reached 560.2 million tonnes, exceeding the levels of 2017 and 2018 when it hit a record high of 549 million tonnes and 556 million tonnes, according to the Central Dispatching Department of the Fuel Energy Complex, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
According to statistics, Soviet oil production set a record in 1987 at 569.5 million tonnes. Later it continued decreasing and plunged to 303 million tonnes by 1996.
Russia’s Energy Ministry predicts that domestic crude output could face a decline in the coming years unless a taxation reform is carried out. Energy Minister Alexander Novak says that Russia’s oil sector bears the highest tax burden in the world that amounts to 70% of companies’ revenues. The development of nearly half of Russia’s oil reserves is unprofitable under the current taxation system, he notes.
On a side note, in 2018, Russia finally achieved the same level of agricultural production it enjoyed prior to the Russian revolution in 1917…a word of caution to today’s communist wanna-bees.
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