The 1568th issue of the bulletin "Branches of the Russian economy: Production, Finance, securities. Oil and gas production and refining" of the AK&M News Agency.
In February 2024, there was a moderate increase in prices on the global oil market. In early April, the growth rate accelerated sharply, and Brent crude oil quotes updated multi-month highs, breaking the $90 per barrel mark. The geopolitical premium in oil quotes is growing. The market fears an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East involving oil exporting countries. The upward trend against the background of stagnant drilling activity in the United States is also supported by the OPEC+ agreement, which confirmed the continuation of oil production cuts in the second quarter of 2024 at the current pace. The acceleration of the Chinese economy and strong macro statistics from the United States also affect the support of bullish sentiment. While maintaining the current news background, the price may well approach the level of $100 per barrel in the short term.
EU energy ministers have supported a one-year extension of gas consumption restrictions. The recommendation to continue to maintain gas consumption at a level 15% lower than the average for the period from April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2022 has been extended until March 31, 2025. Since April, the European Commission intends to begin taking measures to reduce purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas, which have increased by 40% since 2022. Also, the European Union does not intend to make efforts to extend the agreement on the transit of Russian gas through the territory of Ukraine.
India is planning to create the first commercial strategic crude oil storage facility. So far, India has allowed only partial commercial use of the country's three existing strategic oil storage facilities, with a combined capacity of 36.7 million barrels. Now, ISPRL has announced a tender for the construction of an underground storage facility with a capacity of 2.5 million tons in Padura in Karnataka.
In January 2024, oil production in Russia remained stable at 10.85 million barrels per day. Such estimates are provided by OPEC. Of this amount, 9.5 million barrels per day accounted for oil and 1.4 million barrels per day for gas condensate. OPEC expects the extraction of liquid hydrocarbons in Russia in 2024 to decrease by 0.2 million barrels per day by 2023, to 10.7 million barrels per day, taking into account all voluntary restrictions under the OPEC+ deal.
In two months of 2024, gas production in Russia amounted to 127.9 billion cubic meters, an increase of 10.1% compared to the same period in 2023. In February of this year, 62.8 billion cubic meters of gas were produced in Russia (+14% yoy). In the daily context, February production was even higher (by 60-70 million cubic meters. m) than production in January, despite the fact that temperatures were lower in January. In the two months of 2024, LNG production amounted to 5.9 million tons, which is 8.7% more than a year earlier.
This and many other topics are covered in Bulletin No. 1568 of the monthly bulletin "Branches of the Russian Economy: Production, Finance, Securities. Oil and Gas Production and refining" by the AK&M News Agency dated April 08, 2024.
