A well head and a drilling rig in the Yarakta oilfield
Russia’s quest for energy ‘technological sovereignty’, part 1
The country inherited a near self-sufficient oil and gas industry from the USSR, and it is working fast to eliminate shortfalls in its domestic capability, where advanced drilling and subsea technologies remain a vulnerability
Western sanctions imposed in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 cut Russia’s oil and gas industry off from most best-in-class technologies, equipment and services in the world. Yet, in many areas, the sector has proved resilient to this pressure. Production and refining runs have both fallen from pre-war levels, but due to OPEC+ quotas and Ukrainian drone strikes respectively, and not as a result of sanctions. Simply put, the impact of sanctions blocking Russia’s access to Western technology and equipment should not be overstated. This resilience owes a lot to the fact Russia inherited a near self-sufficient oil and gas industry from the Soviet Union, with a
Also in this section
13 May 2025
A fall in Venezuelan output drives overall production lower, as Saudi Arabia starts to slowly bring more crude to the market
12 May 2025
With the gas industry’s staunchest advocates and opponents taking brutal blows, the sector looks like treading a path of insipid indifference
7 May 2025
From China blocking US LNG to Trump demanding that various countries import more of the fuel, the politicisation of LNG is on the rise
