By Nadia Rodova

March 3, 2010 - Russia's average crude production rose to 10.037 million b/d in February, up 3.6% year on year and setting a new post-Soviet era record high, according to preliminary data released March 2.

In August 2009, the country's crude output hit 9.89 million b/d, beating the then post-Soviet record of October 2007, and since then production has remained around 10 million b/d.

According to data from the Central Dispatching Unit, part of Russia's energy ministry, crude output totaled 38.497 million in February, mainly due to the contribution from new fields such as Rosneft's Vankor field in East Siberia and TNK-BP's Uvat project in West Siberia as well as projects developed under production sharing agreements.

 The effect of the new fields is, however, unlikely to last for long and analysts expect crude output growth to slow down significantly in the second half of the year.

For example, the effect of Lukoil's Yuzhno-Khylchuyu field in the northern Timan-Pechora oil province, which started up in the summer of 2008, already has been nearly played out, Valery Nesterov, an analyst with Moscow-based Troika-Dialog investment company, said.

Lukoil's output rose only 0.5% to more than 97 million mt (1.94 million b/d) last year, with its key assets in West Siberia seeing a 5% decline in crude production in the period, he said.

Russia's ninth-biggest oil producer Bashneft and gas giant Gazprom were "champions" among Russian oil majors in February, showing 18% and 20% increases on the year, respectively, Nesterov said.

While Gazprom increased output of liquid hydrocarbons due to a rise in gas production, Bashneft's output growth most likely resulted from more effective management by the company's new owners, he said.

"Bashneft itself cites the use of new technologies behind the increase in output, but in reality this is unlikely to bring results so quickly," Nesterov said.

The company's new owners have organized the unit's work more efficiently and this has borne fruit, he added. Russian holding company Sistema bought Bashneft in May 2009.

Russia's third-biggest oil producer TNK-BP continued to show an increase in production due to efforts spent on the development of its new projects, mainly Uvat and Kamennoye in West Siberia and Verkhnechonsk in East Siberia.

The CDU data showed that Russia's biggest oil producer Rosneft, whose crude output rose 2.9% last year mainly due to its new giant Vankor field in East Siberia, showed a 0.6% decline in oil output in February.

This, however, happened due to a change in the statistics methodology as the Central Dispatching Unit did not include Tomskneft's output in Rosneft's consolidated production starting from February, Nesterov said.

Rosneft owns the 235,000 b/d producer Tomskneft on a parity basis with Gazprom Neft.

Meanwhile, exports of Russian crude to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States fell 0.4% year on year to 16.144 million mt (4.209 million b/d) in February, the data showed.

The CIS comprises 12 former Soviet Republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan.

Russia transported a total of 17.599 million mt of crude to non-CIS countries, down 3.7% on the year, including 1.455 million mt of transit crude from other countries, mainly Kazakhstan.

Russia's February crude exports to the CIS countries showed only a marginal rise of 0.4% to 2261.8 million mt, after a 31.5% fall in supplies in January.

January's decline was mainly due to a spat between Russia and Belarus over new terms for crude supplies to that country in 2010 that was resolved only on January 27.

Crude supplies to Belarus were 1.399 million mt in February, down 9.2% on the year, while crude deliveries to Kazakhstan jumped 52% on the year to 537.6 million mt.

February crude deliveries to Russian refineries rose 3.7% to 19.177 million mt.

Russian natural gas production, meanwhile, climbed 18.7% year on year to 57.95 billion cubic meters in February. Of the total, Gazprom pumped 45.71 Bcm, up 15.6% year on year.