Free Republic

Russia's 2014 oil output hit a post-Soviet record high average of 10.58 million barrels per day (bpd), rising by 0.7 percent helped by small non-state producers, Energy Ministry data showed on Friday. Oil and gas condensate production in December hit 10.67 million bpd, also a record high since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The data showed Russia's so-called small producers, mostly privately held, increased their output by 11 percent to just over 1 million barrels per day. Crude oil exports via state monopoly Transneft fell 5 percent to 195.5 million tonnes due to rising domestic demand and refinery runs....

ALARM - Interruption of the Russian oil deliveries towards Poland and Germany WARSAW - the Russian oil deliveries towards Poland and Germany were stopped in the night of Sunday to Monday at the border polono-bélarusse, announced Monday the Polish company of pipelines PERN.

Russia's oil pipeline monopoly said yesterday deliveries to Europe would be cut and prices for Russian crude would rise once the country built a planned pipeline to Asia, in another indication of mounting global competition for energy resources, writes Neil Buckley in Moscow. Semyon Vainshtok, chief executive of Transneft, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that building a pipeline to China would reduce the $5-a-barrel discount that Russia's Urals blend crude sells at compared to West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude. "We have oversupplied Europe with oil. And every economics manual says when there is excess supply the price falls. As soon as...

For a decade Washington has been backing the Turkish and Azerbaihan governments to steer the export of Caspian region crude oil away from Russia. Russia's newest riposte has been to ally the Russian and Iranian oil industries, and open up the shortest, cheapest, and most lucrative oil route of all, southwards out of the Caspian to Iran. The economics of the southward route are the latest blow for the Bush Administration, as it tries to redraw the geography of the Caucasus on an anti-Russian map. But for oil exporters and shippers in the Caspian, President George Bush's jawboning looks to...