nsdp + 449 eh April 11, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsCSP8Ic6w "Most of Russia’s oil fields are both old and extraordinarily remote from Russia’s customers. Fields in the North Caucasus are either tapped out or were never refurbished in the aftermath of the Chechen Wars, those of Russia’s Tatarstan and Bashkortostan provinces are well past their peak, and even western Siberian fields have been showing diminishing returns since the 2000s. With few exceptions, Russia’s oil discoveries of the last decade or three are deeper, smaller, more technically challenging, and even farther from population centers than the older fields they would be expected to replace. Russian output isn’t in danger of collapsing, but maintaining output will require more infrastructure, far higher up-front costs, and ongoing technical love and care to prevent steady output declines from becoming something far worse. While the Russians are no slouches when it comes to oil field knowledge, they were out of circulation from roughly 1940 through 2000. Oil technology came a long way in those sixty years. Foreign firms—most notably supermajors BP and Shell, and services firms Halliburton and Schlumberger—have collectively done work that is probably responsible for half of Russia’s contemporary output.' The last time this happened was the Soviet collapse in 1989. It took millions of manhours of help from the likes of BP and Halliburton – and thirty-two years – for Russia to get back to its Cold War production levels. And now, with war on in Ukraine, insurance companies are cancelling policies for tankers carrying anything Russian on Seas Black and Baltic while the French seize Russian vessels, and the Russian Central Bank under the strictest financial sanctions ever, it is all falling apart. Again. Then you have the problem of inadequate port facilities if Russia tries to load ships. you cannot get super tankers to the Baltic or Black Seas(Danish and Dardenelles are too shallow) and the pipeline to Vladivostok is already full. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites