Russia’s oil production slowed in March for the first time in seven months, but remained above the 11 million barrel per day mark, according to an Interfax report.
In particular, Russia pumped 46.57 million tons of crude oil and concentrates in March, according to an anonymous source quoted by the independent Russian news agency. That equates to 11.1 million barrels a day, down 0.6 percent from February, according to Bloomberg estimates.
The last time Russia saw a drop in oil production was last August, after a fire broke out at a Gazprom PJSC processing plant in Western Siberia, according to data from the Energy Ministry CDU-TEK unit of the Russian Ministry of Energy.
Russia, which accounts for about 10 percent of world production, is under pressure over sanctions imposed by Western countries and their allies over its invasion of Ukraine. By the end of March, all three key indicators of the Russian oil industry – namely production, exports and refinery deliveries – fell compared to the beginning of the month, according to Bloomberg calculations based on preliminary data from CDU-TEK .
Although few countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have banned all purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products, many more traditional Moscow customers avoid Russian oil, which led to a sharp drop in Russian exports last month.
Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg, domestic fuel demand has also declined amid uncertainty over Russia’s economic growth. The double blow has forced the country’s refineries to reduce their argon processing volume due to oversupply.
CDU-TEK, for its part, has delayed publishing data on the level of oil production in March, citing technical difficulties, according to an e-mail sent by the unit of the Ministry of Energy of Russia. CDU-TEK also did not specify when the announcement of these data, which was originally scheduled for April 2, is expected.
Meanwhile, between March 16 and 27, Russia’s oil production fell below 11 million barrels per day, something that had happened since the beginning of the year, or 1.2% lower than in the first half. of the month, according to Bloomberg calculations based on previous industry data.
Source: Capital
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