Russia Min: Plans To Keep Oil Output About 500 Million Tons/Year For Decade

MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Russia plans to keep its annual oil production at around 500 million tons a year over the next 10 years, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said Friday.

In January to November, Russia’s output totaled 462.15 million tons of crude oil and condensate, up 2.3% on the year.

Algeria’s government wants state-owned Sonatrach to enter BP PLC’s (BP) projects in the country, Russia’s Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said Friday.

“As far as I understand, Algeria is more inclined to Sonatrach’s entering the projects,” Shmatko said.

Sonatrach will study if it can develop BP’s assets in Algeria on its own, Shmatko said, adding that Algeria was still to decide if TNK-BP Ltd., BP’s Russian venture, can buy the BP assets in Algeria.

BP is in the process of selling $30 billion of assets to cover the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In Algeria, BP has two large natural gas projects, In Salah, which covers seven fields in the southern Sahara desert, and in Amenas.

BP also participates in the Rhourde El Baguel oil project and is exploring for oil in the Bourarhet block next to In Amenas.

Russia isn’t currently looking at the possibility of removing ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) as operator of the Sakhalin-1 project on Russia’s Pacific coast, the country’s Energy Minister Sergey Shmatko said Friday.

“We currently don’t have any concrete plans or see any pressing reasons to change the operator at Sakhalin-1,” Shmatko said.

He added that Russia is so far satisfied with ExxonMobil’s work as operator of the project, but “may look at the possibility of changing the operator,” in case there are problems with the “effectiveness” of the project.