West Siberian Oil Production in the Mid-1990s

A Western specialist on the liquid fuel industries and resources of Russia surveys trends in and factors affecting output in Russia's most important oil-producing region, accounting for nearly 70% of the country's production in 1994 and a similar share of oil reserves. A prolonged decline in oil output in the region, starting in 1988, appears to be bottoming out as a function of efforts to rehabilitate idle wells and liberalized regulations governing oil exports. A focus is on documenting trends in production within a series of regional production associations charged with operation of specific fields (of widely variable age and reserves) in West Siberia and on surveying Western participation in joint ventures involved in field development for deposits characterized by difficult geological conditions. Official projections of West Siberian crude oil output based on various assumptions regarding rates of investment, well rehabilitation, exploratory drilling, secondary recovery, etc. are reviewed and evaluated.