Mikhail Krutikhin: "There is little oil left in Russia, and it is too expensive ..."

The well-known Russian economic analyst, oil and gas market specialist Mikhail Krutikhin decided to calculate what are the oil reserves in our country. It is known that the extraction of "black gold" in Russia is fraught with great difficulties. As an example, the analyst cited a TV story about how a new oil field was discovered in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous region. This required as many as 55 teams of drillers, topographers, and seismic prospectors. Moreover, it turned out that the geological reserves of oil there are only 1 million tons, which means that with the existing oil recovery factor (ORF) in our country, it will be possible to extract a maximum of 300 thousand tons.

Meanwhile, until recently, discovering deposits of 50 million tons was considered an ordinary case. That is, there is a catastrophic drop in the efficiency of exploration work with an increase in the cost of oil produced. And this fact is very well known to the authorities, the Minister of Energy Alexander Novak spoke about it 2 years ago, predicting that by 23035 oil production in the country will decrease from the current 570 to 310 million tons, that is, by 44%! BUT this forecast will also have to be revised, since both the demand for oil and the quality of oil reserves have dropped since then. So for the whole last year, 59 deposits were discovered, all of them from the "small" category, and for 6 months of this year - 11, in which there are a total of 30 million tons, and only a third - 10 million - will be extracted.

Experts admit that almost all of the growth is due to the exploration of not new, but of already discovered fields, and oil companies are in no hurry to look for new ones in new territories, they invest 3-4% of all drilling costs in drilling exploratory wells, while leading foreign companies - 9 -fifteen %. And all because with high drilling costs, there are equally high risks of finding "dry" wells, thereby obtaining a cost price higher than expected. The share of hard-to-recover oil in our country is already more than 65%...

Minister Novak argues that in order for our oil industry to survive, the price of oil must be at least $ 50 per barrel. And this is in the face of intense competition with countries in which huge oil reserves are combined with low production costs.

Today, for world deposits, the price fluctuates between $ 8 and $ 38, that is, an average of about $ 23. At the same time, more than half of the uncommitted oil reserves, the production of which has not yet been invested, are located in three conditional zones. First, the Middle Eastern onshore fields (average comfortable price of $ 31. Second, deep-water, with a price of $ 43. And third, the North American hard-to-recover with a price of $ 44. The reserves on the continental shelf cost an average of $ 48 per barrel...

In Russia, the volume of not commissioned onshore fields is estimated at 20 billion barrels (approximately 2.7 billion tons), while in the Middle East - at 100 billion barrels. And the comfortable price of a Russian barrel is on average $ 53 per barrel.

That is, the conclusions are obvious: there is much less oil in our country than is stated in official reports, and its competitiveness is simply unconvincing even in comparison with deep-sea offshore projects and shale-bitumen of North America.

Therefore, in the middle of this century, Russia's competitors will occupy the leading positions in the oil market, especially since with a decrease in the consumption of hydrocarbons in the world, those for whom oil production is easy and cheap will come to the fore. And this is by no means Russia.

And therefore, the expert sums up, Russia will now drive as much and as quickly as possible the oil that can still be extracted, and does not care about investments for the long term, since this prospect does not exist.