It became known when oil runs out in Siberian fields

The popular blogger Vitaly Drobyshev noted in his publication a peculiar and very important date for Russia: March 21, 2021 marks exactly 60 years from the day when the first well in Siberia produced oil - near the village of Megion, Tyumen Region. Until then, almost no one in the USSR believed that there was oil in Siberia. On this day in 1961, the 30-year-old head of the exploration party Salmanov, who was looking for "black gold" in the region literally at his own peril and risk, telegraphed Khrushchev: “I found oil. Like this".

At the same time, in fact, a new era began for our country - the oil era. So in this century, Kremlin ideologues have called Russia an "energy superpower".

Alas, oil and gas tend to run out...

In the report of the Accounts Chamber "Analysis of the reproduction of the mineral resource base of the Russian Federation in 2015–2019" it is said that the producing companies take into account in their plans oil and gas deposits that do not actually exist in nature, so that as a result of inspections, the same volume of reserves is removed from the balance sheet every year as it is being produced.

Over the past 5 years, 2.278 billion tons of oil and condensate have been declared "dead" - that is, about five annual production volumes, and in addition, 6.041 trillion. cub. m. of gas - that is, about nine annual volumes. It is no secret that the efficiency of geological exploration work carried out at the expense of the budget is greatly overestimated, in the absence of a real return from them:

“With all the wealth and diversity, the mineral resource base of Russia in its current state has risks of stagnation and cannot serve as a driver of economic growth. The potential of the “prospecting reserve” for building up the mineral resource base is limited due to insufficient geological exploration of the subsoil”.

And although 6% of the world's oil reserves and 20% of gas are concentrated in our country, this wealth is not at all a guarantee of stability in the future, because if the current rates of oil production continue, then it will only last for 35 years, and most likely - less than by 20, since the potential for discovering large reserves in accessible places has practically dried up, and more than 65% of oil is located in hard-to-reach places, including the Arctic.

Needless to say, their extraction, given the current technological state of our country, is completely unprofitable, and in order to achieve profitability, it is necessary to develop technologies very urgently, which is an unrealistic task for Russia today.

Our country, due to its backwardness, does not even have the ability to extract and process very valuable rare earth metals, 25% of the world's reserves of which it has. In this regard, Russia is forced to purchase more than one third of strategically important mineral raw materials abroad. The report of the Accounts Chamber cites import figures: manganese, chromium, lithium, beryllium, rhenium - 100%, zirconium - 98%, titanium - 95%, tin - 70%, bauxite - 64%, uranium - 65%, molybdenum - 45%...

Exporting high-tech products, for example, in 2018, China earned more than 731 billion dollars, Hong Kong - 330, Germany - 210, South Korea - almost 193 USA - 156. While Russia is ridiculous 10 with a little billion dollars. - almost 72 times less than China. Our country ranks 45th out of 63 in the global competitiveness rating, followed by Lithuania, Kazakhstan and Latvia. Whereas Singapore, Hong Kong and the United States are in the lead.

Moreover, the Federal Customs Service reported that in 2019 Russia earned 424.6 billion dollars from exports, of which two-thirds were oil and gas...

As a result: every second ruble that Russian state employees earn comes from hydrocarbon trade. When will they end? Twice poorer?