Vice president of Russia's second-biggest oil producer Lukoil, Leonid Fedun, said in a Financial Times interview published Friday that he believed last year's production of about 10 million barrels/day was the highest he would see "in his lifetime".
Fedun likened Russia to the North Sea and Mexico, where oil production is declining sharply, saying that in its main oil-producing region of western Siberia, "the period of intense oil production [growth] is over". The comments reflect a recent downward trend in the country's crude production, which has market analysts fretting about the possibility of a year-on-year decline in production for the first time since 1998.

Updated: April 15, 2008