'It's Going To Run Out': How Much Oil Is Left In Russia?
- 4.09.2025, 13:06
The oil economy is reaching its last years.
Russia's oil economy, built on selling "black gold" abroad in exchange for technology and consumer goods, is reaching its last years, reported the head of Rosnendr Oleg Kazanov at a meeting of the State Council's energy commission.
Of the total resource potential for oil, which the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment estimates at 81.6 billion tons, only 13.2 billion tons are profitable, that is, about 16%, according to the agency's estimates. At the same time, almost all discovered oil deposits - 96% of the subsoil fund - are already involved in production, Kazanov said.
"If we call things by their names, we have transferred almost all objects with reserves to subsoil users," he complained. "No matter how much we stimulate production at the existing fields, sooner or later they will run out," Kazanov added (he was quoted by Izvestia).
The attempts to find new large oil deposits in Russia year after year do not bring results. Last year, 39 fields were discovered, but their total reserves amounted to only 21 million tons. This is a "laughing stock," states oil and gas expert Mikhail Krutikhin: at current production (about 520 million tons a year), Russia pumps out such a volume in about two weeks, writes The Moscow Times.
Moreover, these reserves can hardly be called proven, Krutikhin continues: "This is the sum of reserves in all categories in the Russian classification, including presumably existing reserves, but not confirmed by geological exploration, not to mention wells. It will be good if half or even a third of this estimate remains in the reserves prepared for commercial development.
In total, oil companies put 592 million tons of new oil on the state balance sheet last year. However, this is the result of additional exploration and drilling of new wells at depleted fields discovered during the Soviet era. Due to the high geological exploration of "old" and long-exploited oil and gas-bearing regions, the state has almost no potential areas left to offer companies for exploration, says Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
The authorities see and recognize the problem. According to the Energy Strategy until 2050, which was approved by the government in April, without substantial investments and new technological solutions, oil production in the country may begin to decline rapidly in the next few years. In the inertial scenario, from the current 520 million tons per year it will drop to 477 million tons by 2036, and to 287 million tons by 2050. Oil exports will have to be reduced by 3 times - from 234 to 79 million tons per year.
In the "stress scenario", which includes the strengthening of Western sanctions and accelerated rejection of hydrocarbons by the world, by 2050 Russia will produce only 171 million tons of oil annually - three times less than now. And there will be no barrels left for export at all: its volume will drop to zero.
"Reduction of oil reserves, which can be considered profitable in the current tax conditions and at current export prices, may in the near future put the country's leadership before a difficult choice: either to watch oil revenues fall into the state budget because of the inability to sell oil at prices above cost, or to subsidize oil producers by cutting taxes - which again means a blow to the budget," Krutikhin warns.