It's no coincidence that "Arctic" comes from the Greek word for BEAR.
Posted on 08/24/2008 12:49:11 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
The Russian oil boom, which has produced a gusher of cash, political power and an opulent elite - and has helped fuel the country's renewed assertiveness in Georgia and elsewhere - is on shakier ground than officials in Moscow would like to admit.
Most of the oil produced after the country's 1998 financial collapse has come from drilling and re-drilling old Soviet oil fields with more advanced equipment - squeezing more black gold out of the same ground - and efforts to develop new fields have been slow or non-existent.
That strategy is potentially disastrous, said Valery Kryukov, who researches oil companies in western Siberia for a government-funded think tank.
"If the situation which exists now stays the same, oil production will start to decline seriously in two years," Kryukov said in a phone interview from his offices in the city of Novosibirsk.
The implications extend far beyond Russia's borders. Last year, Russia was the world's second-largest oil producer. If its output begins to decline or is hampered by inept or corrupt business practices, the price of oil could begin climbing again.
The concerns about Russia's oil industry also raise questions about the health of the nation's economy, which has enjoyed stratospheric growth thanks to high oil prices since the economic crisis a decade ago, according to interviews with a dozen economists and analysts.
Higher oil and gas prices could further enrich and embolden resurgent Russia, but if production declines sharply, a hungry bear could prove to be even more troublesome than a prosperous one is.
That's a serious matter for a country where, by some estimates, the oil sector funded about a third of the national budget last year, and where by all accounts industrial, technological and agricultural businesses lag far behind.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Oh crap. I smell another Jackson Browne lawsuit.
Any truth to this report?
Ruh roh..
Big Red may get hungry
or are their recent actions
just a precursor?
So let's revive Operation Exodus and ban the export of oil drilling, recovery and refining technology to Russia.
interesting.
nothing bites ya in the butt like success.
Red Storm Rising 2008?
Maybe the Russians knew this a few years back, and were hoping Saddam would help them.
“Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president from 2000 to 2008 and now the prime minister, the Russian government dismantled the nation’s largest oil firm, Yukos, and imprisoned its founder.”
Central planning Russian style.
Our curse is central planners trying to “save the planet”.
The government declared oil to be part of a "strategic sector" in which foreign investors need permission from the government before they can buy a significant stake in companies. Foreigners have been steadily shoved out, including a recent incident in which the head of the joint Russia-UK company TNK-BP, one of the country's leading oil concerns, and 148 specialists left the country after their visa status was called into question.
Now tell me, would you like to be a Russian good at running an oil company?
Would you want to invest billions in capital only to be shoved out (like Chavez did too)?
It is no wonder that few want to work there.
When Russian leaders get done being drunk on power, there will be a powerful hangover. If you do not know what you are doing, you can mess up a good well, or an entire field, and their arrogance will be writ large in their production decline curves.
Prior to the regime change in April 2003, French and Russian oil companies possessed oil contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime that covered roughly 40 percent of the country's oil wealth...Political and military ties between Moscow and Baghdad were extensive.
It's no coincidence that "Arctic" comes from the Greek word for BEAR.
Pelosi says case needed for U.S. offshore drilling
************************
ping!
Give the way Putin screwed Royal Dutch Shell after the billions were spent on the development of the Sakhalin field, I'd say new foreign investment is going to be hard to come by
That won’t fly for a second. France’s Total and Schlumberger will fill that void in a NY city taxicab minute. Not to mention assorted state-owned oil companies and tech and support firms.
Maybe that’s why they’re making a move to take control of supplies from the Caspian? ??
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