Lukoil foresees less oil production in 2011
MOSCOW. Oct 5 (Interfax) - Russian oil major Lukoil expects to see a small decrease in oil production volume company-wide this year as compared with last, company Vice President Leonid Fedun told the press.
"It will be a little less," Fedun said, adding that it will begin to increase next year. Lukoil has worked up a program for stabilizing oil-extraction that its board of directors will be looking at next month, he said. "In fact, it is already being realized. If you look at the number for Western Siberia, the rate of extraction decrease has slowed," he said.
As reported, the Lukoil group's average oil production in H1 dipped to 1.859 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, a drop of 5.2% year-on-year. Including Lukoil's portion in output by dependent companies, oil production came to 336.4 million barrels, or 46.5 million tonnes. Oil-extraction in Western Siberia decreased 4.1%.
Fedun said the reason for the production decrease was an incorrect assessment of the geology at the Yuzhnoye Khylchuyuskoye deposit and thus an insufficiently high level of production there.
Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov, after announcing the company's H1 results, said a program for stabilizing the extraction of hydrocarbons has to be worked up and strictly followed.
Lukoil forecasts that oil production volume will stabilize next year and start increasing in 2013.