According to Kommersant, Petrov made a statement on the real volume of profitable oil reserves in the country on the sidelines of the Tyumen Oil and Gas Forum. “Profitable oil reserves will last for about 20-21 years,” Petrov told a TASS correspondent.
At the same time, the expert is convinced that with the development of technologies for the extraction of hard-to-recover oil reserves, the term may increase. The greatest potential for oil production, according to Petrov, is Western Siberia. About 70% of the oil and gas reserves discovered in the world in 2020 fell on Russia. One of the largest deposits is located in the Kara Sea. In addition, deposits have been explored in Western Siberia.
At the same time, in a harsh climate, mining in remote regions is associated with high financial costs. In order to make production more profitable, it is necessary to significantly increase the volume.
At the same time, Pavel Zavalny, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy, believes that there is no reason for panic. “New technologies, an experimental tax regime on additional income [from oil production], which will become the main one in the future, will increase the economic profitability of developing reserves”, - he told NEWS.ru.
Zavalny also noted that the dependence of the Russian economy on the oil and gas sector is decreasing. Further reducing dependence on hydrocarbon trade depends on the development of other energy sectors. First of all, we are talking about nuclear energy, modernization of traditional energy, import substitution, as well as the development of agriculture.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, from 2010 to 2020, crude oil reserves in the country fell by 27 percent. 10 years ago, this figure was 28.2 billion tons against 19.1 billion in the past. At the same time, from 2019 to 2020, the stock even grew slightly - by 2.1 percent. Gas reserves have also gradually decreased over these 10 years. In 2010-2015, there were about 70 trillion cubic meters, in 2016 it was about 50 trillion, and last year - 49.2 trillion, which is 27.4 percent less than in 2010.
In 2020, according to the Ministry of Energy, Russia reduced oil production by 8.6% - to 512.8 million tons. It turns out that 6 new small and very small deposits put on state records in the first half of 2021 with a total volume of 5 million tons - less than 1% of the annual production. They will not be enough for 3.5 days of work. Geological exploration work carried out at the expense of mining companies gave indicators slightly better. They found 26.4 million tons of oil with production in the first six months of 254.829 million tons and 15.9 billion cubic meters of gas with production of 334.8 billion cubic meters in the first 6 months. In any case, the new fields do not compensate for the production rates in any way.