*Money from oil and gas accounts for 52.2 percent of all revenues to the state treasury and more than 35 percent of Russia’s exports. **Imagine the shithole they'd be in if their oil no-longer mattered. http://www.mosnews.com/money/2006/08/23/russiaoil.shtml Statistics recently published by the oil cartel OPEC show that Russia is currently extracting more oil than Saudi Arabia, making it the biggest producer of “black gold†in the world, the British Financial Times reported on Wednesday, Aug. 23. OPEC statistics show that in the period since 2002 Russian companies have surpassed the Saudis as the world’s biggest oil producers on an on-and-off basis. The latest figures, however, have been hailed in Russia as evidence that such periodic production spikes are no one-offs and that Moscow really does have a right to lay claim to the number one spot. According to OPEC, in June 2006 Russia extracted 9.236 million barrels of oil, which is 46,000 barrels more than Saudi Arabia. The statistics also showed that Russian production in the first half of this year increased to 235.8 million tons, a year-on-year improvement of 2.3 percent. Traditionally, Saudi Arabia has been regarded as the world’s undisputed primary source of oil and Russia has had to settle for second place. But in recent years Russia has re-nationalized and modernized much of its industry and that policy now appears to be paying off. Even Russian analysts concede that Moscow’s cause is helped by the fact that Saudi Arabia is subject to OPEC output restrictions. The Saudis are famous for their ability to access spare capacity and raise production at short notice and if they really wanted to reassert their leadership role the feeling is they could do so easily. Unconcerned by such “detailsâ€, Russia’s “toppling†of the Saudis was welcomed domestically on Tuesday, Aug. 22. The populist Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper ran a story headlined “Russia takes first place in oil output rankingsâ€. With oil prices hovering above $70 a barrel for London Brent crude because of uncertainty over Iranian supplies and BP’s pipeline crisis in Alaska, Russia is enjoying an unprecedented bonanza. But analysts say its oil industry is already working close to capacity and that it will be able to manage output increases of up to only 2 percent a year between now and 2009. There are also fears that Russia is becoming too addicted to what politicians call “the oil needleâ€, and is doing too little to develop future revenue streams. Money from oil and gas accounts for 52.2 percent of all revenues to the state treasury and more than 35 percent of Russia’s exports. Such riches can make a country complacent, according to Alexei Kudrin, the Russian Finance Minister. “At present, we are in a dangerously carefree zone,†he said recently.
Russia boggles me! They have a militant islamic problem; in Chechnya. Yet, they are in bed with Iran. makes no sense at all.
There's one country that's slowly losing power over resources and will eventually be in serious trouble. That country is the USA. hmm. Maybe Chavez was right. We are going to attack Venezuela.
Yeah, but to a degree it was a willfull chose of the public...especially concerning petro. I like George Carlin's view on politicians...he says to parphrase, ' you wonder why I don't speak about politicians...well, I think they're the byproduct of society...so I don't blame them for what they do...I think the problem isn't them, it's the scum that is society which makes them.'
Russia is in bed with iran just to keep the price of oil high, without high oil prices those two countries have nothing and are irrelevent. This country has more than enough natural resources to feed our energy needs, now if the liberals would let us drill for it, or dig up the shale reserves in colorado, utah and wyoming, we might not have to depend so much on oil imports. We need to make a deal with mexico, we will accept your illegals only if they have a barrel of oil strapped to their backs . Why can cuba drill for oil 60 miles off the coast of florida but the usa cant?
You're probably right. More for Iran, but it applies for both, generally. The cost of producing oil from shale is realitively higher, although some people have asserted that there's cheaper ways of producing that shale (to make it competitive). They invested into shale in the 70's, and once heavy investment really started to go into it, opec started producing petro on quicker scale...thus destroying the desire for investment. Once that 'better method' comes into play or we maintain higher prices for a while, shale will definitely come into play (unless something else beat it there). I used to worry about 'oil peak', but it's more or less a matter of investment...that's the thing to worry about. A day? Everyday you bring a barrel...lmao. ANWAR and all our offshore would garner quite a bit of oil. Enough that we wouldn't have to worry about being subservient to foreign powers for a while (that the dem politicians seem to want). We'll have to eventually gain the tech to get the shale or have another reputable method of powering our economy/infrastructure. To a some level, I think higher prices like this are good,...in that it helps increase investment into alternatives.