Most of Russia’s oil fields are both old and extraordinarily remote from Russia’s customers. Fields in the North Caucasus are all but tapped out, those of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan are well past their peak, and even those in western Siberia have been showing signs of diminishing returns for more than a decade. With few exceptions, Russia’s newer discoveries are deeper, smaller, more technically challenging, and even farther from population centers. Russian output isn’t in danger of collapsing, but maintaining output will require more infrastructure, far higher up-front costs, and ongoing
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