Russia running out of 'easy' oil

Nearly all of Russia’s oil production will consist of the so-called hard-to-recover crude reserves unless the country speeds up and incentivizes exploration, Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said on Wednesday.

“Almost 100% of our production will be hard to recover over the term of ten years,” Sorokin said, as quoted by news agency TASS.

The hard-to-recover reserves will have much higher lifting costs than conventional reserves, according to the deputy energy minister.