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....

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Barely two weeks after President Vladimir V. Putin annexed Crimea on one side of the Black Sea, he won a different prize on the other side. In Bulgaria’s Parliament, lawmakers gave initial passage to a bill clearing the way for a mammoth gas pipeline from Russia. The pipeline, known as South Stream, was Mr. Putin’s most important European project, a tool of economic and geopolitical power critical to twin goals: keeping Europe hooked on Russian gas, and further entrenching Russian influence in fragile former Soviet satellite states as part of a broader effort to undermine European unity....

Russia’s central bank is trying to resist a brutal assault on the ruble, but any respite is bound to be short-lived. The Central Bank of Russia waded into currency markets Monday as the ruble plunged to levels not seen since the 1998 financial crisis that triggered a devaluation and government debt default. Like the Canadian dollar and the Norwegian krone, the Russian currency has been under extreme pressure amid the collapse in oil prices. The ruble plunged as much as 6.5 per cent Monday, hitting a record low against the U.S. dollar before retracing some its lost ground to close...

A summit earlier this week achieves consensus on the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the sea. Iran and Russia have built unanimous consensus among the Caspian states, which also feature Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, over the inadmissibility of a foreign military presence in the Caspian Sea, ruling out any future possible deployment of NATO forces in the basin. A political declaration signed by the presidents of the five Caspian states at the IV Caspian Summit held in Astrakhan, Russia, on September 29, “sets out a fundamental principle for guaranteeing stability and security, namely, that only the Caspian littoral...

USINSK, Russia (AP) -- On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon. The source: a decommissioned well whose rusty screws ooze with oil, viscous like jam. This is the face of Russia's oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world's worst ecological oil catastrophe. Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia's annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year. That is equivalent to one Deepwater Horizon-scale leak about every two months. Crumbling infrastructure and a harsh climate combine...

MOSCOW - In his most detailed statement to date, President Vladimir Putin has spelled out Russia's priorities for transporting crude oil to Asian markets in the next decade. In diplomatic but unambiguous language, Putin rejected Japanese proposals, in favor of China. In a press conference at Gleneagles last week as the new chairman of the G8, Putin identified rail deliveries to China from the new border terminal at Skovorodino as his first priority, with 20 million tons (385,000 barrels per day) the target for delivery, once Transneft, the state pipeline agency, builds the planned new pipeline to Skovorodino. This terminal...