MOSCOW, November 27 (Sputnik) – The volume of oil extracted by Russian companies will begin decreasing in 2015 if oil prices remain at their current lows, LUKoil Vice President Leonid Fedun said Thursday.
“Russia will most likely reduce its extraction [of oil] starting in 2015,” Fedun said during a telephone conference with investors.
Over the past five months oil prices have dropped by about $40 per barrel.
His statement comes amid a fall in the price of oil by some 30 percent since June owing to the shale gas boom in the United States and a fall in demand from China and Europe amid slowing growth.
LUKOIL, Russia's second largest oil company after Rosneft, was founded in 1991. Headquartered in Moscow, it accounts for 2.1 percent of the world's output of crude oil. It is also the world's largest privately owned oil and gas company by proven oil reserves.