UPDATE: Russian ministry sees oil price rising to $95–105 by 2035

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MOSCOW, Oct 18 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Energy Ministry has forecasted an oil output increase to 550–560 million tonnes and a price growth to U.S. $95–105 per barrel in its 2035 energy strategy, as follows from an amended draft strategy published on Tuesday.

Under an optimistic scenario, the output will reach 555 million tonnes in 2020 and will remain at approximately the same level throughout the rest of the forecasted period. This scenario also envisages that global oil prices will be within the $50–65 range until 2020 and then rise to $95–105 by 2030.

A conservative scenario envisages a 548 million tonne output by 2020, a 530 million tonne one by 2025, a 512 million tonne one by 2030 and a 490 million tonne one by 2035.

The ministry said it considered stress scenarios including low prices and demand for energy resources when working on the amendments to its strategy, but did not include them because it sees the probability of their fulfillment as low.

The ministry also expects oil reserves to grow by at least 13–15 billion tonnes by 2035 and gas reserves by 25–27 trillion cubic meters.

The West Siberia, Lena-Tunguskaya, Caspian, Timano-Pechorskay and Volga-Urals oil and gas-bearing provinces will remain the key areas for the oil and gas reserve increase but they are able to replace only up to 50% of the extracted resources. Geological exploration and a rise in recoverable resources will have an increasing role in replenishment of the reserves.

The ministry said that hard-to-recover reserves must account for up to 17% of the entire amount of the oil output by 2035, rising from the current 8%.

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