In August 2017, Russia maintained the leading position in world oil production, producing on average 10.608 million barrels of oil per day, Rosstat data released on October 23, 2017 demonstrate. Russia’s daily production stood ahead of Saudi Arabia’s output for the sixth month in a row. Saudi Arabia’s extraction volume in August was in the second place, with 10.022 million barrels of oil per day.

In the reporting period, the OPEC countries produced 32.755 million barrels a day on average. Iraq’s production stood at 4.448 million barrels. Experts believe that Saudi oil exports will continue decreasing because the country’s crude stockpiles are being drawn down.

The volume of oil and gas condensate exports from Russia in the time period from January to August 2017 was 170.7 million tons. This figure reflects a growth rate of 0.3 percent. Oil and gas condensate production in Russian stood at 364.7 million tons, which is 0.9 percent more in comparison with the corresponding period of the previous year.

The share of oil exports in total Russian exports in the eight-month period from January to August 2017 was 27.3 percent. Oil exports also comprised 44.3 percent of all fuel and energy exports from January to August 2016. In the corresponding period of the previous year, the figures were 26.2 percent and 44.4 percent respectively.

In August 2017, the average actual export price for oil was 350.6 dollars per ton, a number that reflected an increase of 104.6 percent over July numbers. The Urals brand oil price in the world market was 372.5 dollars per ton, which was 106.6 percent of the