Russia: Oil exports flat, but earnings soar

AFTER SEVERAL years of rapid growth Russian oil production and exports have begun to slow. Thanks to high world oil prices, export revenues are soaring, but producers are not seeing much benefit – most of the windfall earnings end up in tax coffers. Production totalled 229.9m tonnes in the first half of 2005, 2.7% more than in the same period of 2004. The ministry of economy forecasts output growth will be between 2.5% and 3.3% in 2005 with full-year production totalling 470m-474m tonnes. In recent years, oil exports have risen far faster than production. But this year, foreign sales have hardly climbed. Some 115.65m tonnes of crude, just over 50% of production, was exported in the first hal