Russia's oil reserves will go on for 35 to 40 years

Major Russian oil companies have extractable oil reserves to last for 30 years on the average, in some cases the reserves should last for 50 years, according to Anatoly Temkin, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources. According to him, Russian oil companies have more extractable oil reserves than foreign companies e.g. BP Amoco have oil extractable reserves to last for 10 years while Exxon Mobil has extractable reserves to last for 12 years. Meanwhile, resources outside the development are in excess of 100 billion tons of reference fuel.

Mr. Temkin said that oil stock increase had only reached 85% of oil production during the period from 1999 to 2003 according to analysis of hydrocarbons production and stock increase. According to him, the situation largely stems from the decrease in exploration and investment in the 1990s.

Mr. Temkin believes that a new state program developed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and approved by the government could shorten the gap between the stock increase and oil production provided that it is funded in full. The program aims to study Russia's oil reserves and provide reproduction of its mineral resources up to the year 2020. According to Mr. Temkin, liquid hydrocarbons stock increase should fully compensate for oil production by 2012.