Russia Oil Output Climbs to Record 10.34 Million Barrels a Day

Russian crude and gas condensate production rose 0.2 percent in October, passing the previous month’s post-Soviet record, while exports declined, reports Bloomberg. Production climbed to 43.7 million metric tons last month (10.34 million barrels a day), according to preliminary data from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. That is a 0.7 percent increase from a year earlier. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for daily output to remain above 10 million barrels for at least the next decade, more than Saudia Arabia’s current production. Oil is Russia’s largest source of tax revenue. Russia’s Soviet-era output peaked at 11.48 million barrels a day in 1987, according to BP Plc data. Exports dropped to 5.29 million barrels a day last month, down 3.1 percent from the previous month and 2.8 percent on year, according to the statistics.

Natural-gas output was 1.8 billion cubic meters a day, a decline of 4.7 percent from a year earlier and an increase of 13 percent from the previous month.