OREANDA-NEWS In Russia, 3,657 oil wells were commissioned in January — June of this year, Vedomosti writes. According to the sources of the publication, their number has decreased by 12 percent compared to the first half of 2023.

It is noted that in June the decrease turned out to be even more significant, amounting to 29 percent relative to the indicators of the first month of last summer (up to 585 wells). At the same time, the material indicates that drilling volumes as a whole decreased slightly compared to last year, and the plan for it in the first half of the year was even exceeded by 3 percent.

Sergey Kaufman, an analyst at Finam, attributes the decrease in the commissioning of new oil wells to a reduction in oil production in the country as part of the OPEC+ deal and additional voluntary commitments from Russia. According to Dmitry Kasatkin, partner at Kasatkin Consulting, the volume of new wells is not required to maintain oil production levels as significant as a year earlier. Ronald Smith, senior analyst at BCS World of Investments, in turn clarified that with the current parameters of the deal, Russian oil companies already have an excess of production capacity.

Earlier, OPEC+ shared plans to gradually increase oil production in a number of countries. In particular, it was said that Russia and Saudi Arabia would begin to reduce the volume of their voluntary reductions in this area at the end of 2024. According to Kaufman's forecast, while maintaining the current situation in the global oil market of the OPEC+ country, it is unlikely that production volumes will increase within the specified time frame.

According to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, oil production decreased more in July than in June, and OPEC+ targets were exceeded by 67 thousand barrels per day. At the same time, in 2023, the total reserves of oil and condensate in Russia increased by a total of 550 million tons - 43 hydrocarbon deposits were discovered in the country in 12 months.