Both the US and Russia have announced record levels of oil production. For the US, the Energy Information Administration says in its monthly report that October production reached 11.537 million bpd (barrels per day), a rise of 79,000 bpd.
Driven by booming levels of shale oil production by companies like ExxonMobil, which also makes lubricants for Mobil UK distributors, US oil production broke its previous 1970 record of 10.04 million bpd back in November 2017. Since then, several new monthly records have been set, including an ongoing five-month streak that started in June 2018. Natural gas production in the contiguous United States also rose to a new all-time high of 96.7 billion cubic feet per day in October.
Russia’s energy ministry, meanwhile, has released figures showing that Russian oil production averaged 11.16 bpd in 2018, beating out the 2017 record of 10.98 million bpd to set a new record high for the post-Soviet period.
The new record comes despite participating in the OPEC-led deal to limit global oil production, which began in 2017, although a deal agreed earlier this year enabled participating countries to use spare capacity to compensate for those countries unable to meet their quotas. Since then, OPEC and its partners have agreed to cut 1.2 million bpd from their collective production to head off falling oil prices, with Russia expected to stay within 11.18 million bpd from January as its contribution to the cuts.
Despite Russia’s new record, the US is now commonly accepted as the world’s largest crude producer.
