This figure is approximately 25 percent more than the total pumped by Saudi Arabia which is following OPEC output cuts. That means that Russia is now the world’ s largest oil producer.
Russian production has recovered in 2009 after suffering its first drop in a decade last year. The latest spike in output follows the August launch by state-controlled industry leader Rosneft of its massive Vankor operation in the Arctic. Before this August, Russia’ s previous monthly record for oil production was the 9.93 million bpd achieved in October 2007.
Vankor is expected to pump 220,000 bpd by the end of this year, rising to 510,000 bpd when production peaks in 2014.
But Russia’ s position as top producer might be temporary, as mature deposits in western Siberia run dry quicker than the country’ s oil majors can replace them with new finds.
Russia has not been invited to recent OPEC meetings. But Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Friday that the group had invited Russia to take part in its December meeting in Angola.
The country also boosted gas output. The world’ s largest gas producer produced 1.52 billion cubic meters per day last month, up 8.6 percent from August, ministry data showed.
Gas export monopoly Gazprom produced 1.20 bcm per day in September, up 11.1 percent from August, the data showed.
