Rosneft Output Dips on Opec Cuts, Covid-19

Russian oil producer Rosneft saw hydrocarbon output fall in the first half of the year – mostly in Q2 – as much of its gas is associated with oil production and gas demand was lower too. First half sales of 27.97bn m³ were down 11% year on year.

But more gas is coming, it said August 14: production facilities at Rospan is in progress and planned to launch in December. Rospan will produce over 21bn m³ of gas, over 5mn metric tons of liquids and over 1mn mt of industrial propane-butane each year.

Q2 liquids output fell to 4.04mn barrels/day, down 13% on Q1, as the company met its quotas under the new Opec+ agreement. However it achieved this by bringing forward well workover operations and by limiting flows without actually shutting in wells. It says this allows a faster and cheaper recovery in output when demand rises.

H1 gas production was 31.8bn m³, 4.9% down on H1 2019, while Q2 production of 15.2bn m³ was down 8.8% on Q1. The main reasons were less associated petroleum gas production and a decline in gas demand amid the Covid-19 pandemic and milder weather.

Combined, H1 output was 5.40mn barrels of oil equivalent/d, a 7% decrease on H1 2019; while Q2 2020 average daily hydrocarbon production was 5.05mn boe/d, down 12.2% on Q1 2020.