10 September 2026
Russian oil companies have been cutting production for the ninth consecutive month following a series of Ukrainian strikes on refineries, which have reduced the country’s refining capacity to a two-decade low.
In August, Russian oil production fell to 8.72 million barrels per day, marking the sharpest monthly decline in more than a year—down 160,000 barrels per day, Bloomberg reports , citing OPEC+ data.
Compared to December, when Russian production began to decline, oil production has fallen by 660,000 barrels per day, leaving current levels 1.17 million barrels per day below the OPEC+ quota.
“Increasingly frequent and effective drone strikes on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure are impacting not only refineries but also the oil production sector,” notes Daria Melnik, Vice President of Rystad Energy. Due to refinery idling, oil refining volumes in Russia have fallen by 30%, leaving approximately 1.7 million barrels of daily production unused.
The inability to export all this oil and limited storage capacity are forcing oil producers to idle wells, Rystad emphasizes. According to government estimates, oil production in Russia will reach a 17-year low of 494.2 million tons this year.
Rystad predicts that Russian oil production will continue to decline in 2027, reaching 8.6 million barrels per day. A significant portion of the country’s oil capacity resides in old, depleted fields, developed during the Soviet era. The longer such wells remain idle, the greater the likelihood that they will not be able to return to their previous capacity, Rystad explains. Furthermore, some wells may be lost forever, as the costs of repairing and restarting them will become economically unviable.
Since its post-Soviet peak in 2019 (11.2 million barrels per day), oil production in Russia has already fallen by more than 20%. Overall, “the oil industry is in zugzwang,” according to Sergei Vakulenko, a research fellow at the Carnegie Berlin Center.
Oil production in Russia will decline slowly but steadily in the near future—at a rate of about 3% per year, according to Vakulenko: “Maintaining the plateau or increasing production is only possible by bringing reserves with a full-cycle technical cost of over $35–40 per barrel into production, something the Russian oil industry currently lacks sufficient capital for, and the government is unwilling to retain this capital.”
After the war with Ukraine, Russia, according to Vakulenko, will likely find itself in the position of a pariah state, cut off from Western markets and technology. “At the same time, it is quite possible that it will deepen its preparations for a possible future war with Ukraine, as well as for a new, indefinite period of military confrontation with Europe and an arms race with the United States. A decline in oil revenues will make the situation even more difficult,” the expert adds.
Mafia land’s oil industry is in deep trouble. But once Ukraine’s ballistic missiles are ready, it will die.
It will decline even further once Ukrainian ballistic missiles get to work, and the drones flying 3000 km into mafia land.
DESTROY ALL THE GASPLANTS AND ELECTRICAL PLANTS DELIVERING MOSCOW WITH ELECTRICITY AND HEAT