Oil production in Russia may rise 3% in 2017 absent production freeze - BP economist
MOSCOW. Sept 22 (Interfax) - Oil production in Russia may increase by as much as 3% in 2017, BP's chief economist for Russia and CIS Vladimir Drebentsov told journalists.
"If no production freeze agreement is reached, the growth might be even greater than this year, because those projects that began implementation at an entirely different time will come on-stream," he said.
Russian oil production will rise 2.1% this year, he said.
"Next year it might even be 3%. We shall see," Drebentsov said.
Commenting on the production freeze talks, he said that midsized and smaller producers were responsible for the increase in oil production in the past two-three years, and that agreeing a production freeze with them will be difficult. "They can only be restricted by economic means. The fiscal regime will have to be tightened," he said.
