SOURCE: NOVATEK.RU
a strategy to expand both piped and liquefied natural gas exports from Russia to Europe and Asia. It was since the autumn of 2019 that Moscow has reiterated that its condensate, which accounts for 7–8 percent of its total oil output, should also be excluded from its production cuts target because other OPEC countries do not include it in their figures. At the December OPEC+ meeting, the group allowed its non-cartel allies to exclude condensate from their production numbers. At their latest meeting, OPEC and non-OPEC countries hammered out a deal to further cut oil production
for in the first quarter of 2020, to 1.7 million barrels a day. Under the new agreement, lasting at least by March, Russia pledged to advance its crude production cuts to 300,000 barrels a day, from the revised October 2018 baseline yet without condensate. What should be recalled is that in October 2018, Russia pumped 10.626 million barrels a day of crude and 795,000 barrels a day of condensate. As of December 2019, crude production fell by 234,000 barrels a day, and condensate output soared by 58,000 barrels a day.
27 January 2020
DOUBLE HIT AGAINST RUSSIA: BULGARIA, NOVICHOK AND SPIES Two days were enough for Bulgaria to take two steps that are likely to aggravate the crisis that erupted in its ties with Moscow in the wake of a series of spy scandals back in the autumn of 2019. First, the Bulgarian Prosecutor General’s Office said that three Russian nationals had attempted to poison a Bulgarian businessman in 2015 and issued international arrest warrants for them. What came only a day later was the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s statement saying it might expel two Russian diplomats it accused of espionage. www.warsawinstitute.org
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