Russia: Oil companies are actively investing into the drilling of wells.

The results of the first half of the year have shown, how Russia manages, contrary to forecasts, to support a small growth in oil production. The market participants are increasing their investments into drilling, despite the sanctions and falling oil prices. The leaders are "Bashneft" and "Rosneft". The latter tries to cope with the reduction of production in Western Siberia and to compensate for its low levels of drilling in 2014. Experts point out that launching large deposits, the major investments into which have already been made, will help to keep up the production level.

In the first half of the year production drilling for oil in Russia increased by 10.3%, according to the RF Minister of Energy, Aleksandr Novak. According to him, as yet none of the major Russian oil companies has reported any plans to cut production this year, despite the drop in oil prices and sanctions. Mr. Novak has recognized that certain downside risks to production existed, but pointed out that, despite this, this year's production continued to grow. According to Central Dispatch Department of the Fuel and Energy Sector in H1 oil and gas condensate increased by 1.2% to 260.9 million tons.