OREANDA-NEWS. November 05, 2009. Preliminary output figures for October 2009 released by CDU-TEK yesterday revealed that Russian oil companies produced 42.47MMt (just over 10MMBD) in October, which represents a marginal (~1MBD) increase over September 2009, reported the press-centre of Otkritie FC.

At the same time, crude output in 10M09 increased by 0.7% YoY, with Rosneft, TNK-BP, Tatneft and LUKOIL the largest contributors to this growth. It is noteworthy that Gazprom visibly increased its gas output in October (by 8.7bcm MoM) to 44.9bcm, although its aggregate 10-month production was still down 20% YoY.

View:  We are encouraged to see continuing production volume growth in the Russian oil and gas sector. In Gazprom’s case, production growth in driven by improving demand conditions in Europe, Russia, and the FSU. Overall volume growth in the oil sector is driven mainly by the ongoing development of greenfields: in particular Vankorskoye (Rosneft), Verkhnechonskoye (TNK-BP and Rosneft), Uvatskoye (TNK-BP) and Talakanskoye (Surgutneftegaz). We expect Russian crude production for the full year to increase by 0.7-0.8% YoY.