Lukoil Suffers 15% Fall in H1 Gas Output
Russia's largest independent oil and gas producer Lukoil produced 14.8bn m3 of gas during the first half of 2020, marking a 15% fall from its output of 17.4bn m3 a year earlier. The decline mainly occurred in the second quarter, with output in the three months down 24% yr/yr at 6.4bn m3.
Lukoil blamed the result on weaker gas demand in China, which led the company to cut supply at its two projects in neighbouring Uzbekistan, Southwest Gissar and Kandym. It delivers gas to China from these sites using the Central Asia-China pipeline system.
Lukoil's international gas production was down 31% at 5.84bn m3 in the first half, whereas extraction in Russia grew 1.3% to 8.97bn m3.
The company produced 40.2mn metric tons of crude oil in the six months, excluding contributions from Iraq's West Qurna-2, down 5.6% yr/yr. It attributed this decline to Russia's commitments under the Opec+ deal.