Russia Oil Production and Exports

Production and OPEC+

Russia's oil and condensate output was 516 million tonnes in 2024 and 512 million tonnes in 2025, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. The government stopped publishing monthly production data after 2022, so analysts rely on OPEC and IEA estimates. OPEC's secondary sources put Russian crude output at about 9.0 million b/d in the first half of 2025.

Russia co-chairs OPEC+ with Saudi Arabia and is one of the seven countries that carried voluntary cuts from 2023. Its quota rose as those cuts were unwound through September 2026, but output has fallen instead. The IEA estimates Russian crude production at 8.36 million b/d in August 2026, about 1.5 million b/d below its implied OPEC+ target, because drone strikes on export terminals and refineries left oil with nowhere to go.

Grades: Urals and ESPO

• Urals is a medium sour blend exported mainly from the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga and from Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. Before 2022 it went mostly to Europe. It now goes mostly to India.
• ESPO is a lighter, sweeter crude piped through the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline to the port of Kozmino and directly to China.

Urals traded around $12–13 below Brent through most of 2025. When the US sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, the discount at Novorossiysk widened to about $23.50 in mid-November 2025, the widest since March 2023. The Iran war reversed this: Urals at Primorsk rose from about $45 before 28 February 2026 to $113.89 on 8 April, its highest since 2013, according to The Insider. In April, Urals priced above ESPO for the first time, the IEA noted.

The shift to Asia

The EU banned seaborne imports of Russian crude from December 2022 and refined products from February 2023. Russian barrels moved east. Exports to India rose from about 50,000 b/d in 2020 to 1.7 million b/d in 2024, according to the EIA, and India took 34% of Russia's crude exports in 2024, with China at 26%. China imported about 2.2 million b/d of Russian crude in 2024, by sea and by pipeline. Asia took 81% of the total. See the India oil imports and China oil imports pages for the buyers' side.

The price cap and the shadow fleet

The G7 and EU introduced a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude on 5 December 2022. Western shippers and insurers may carry Russian oil only if it is sold at or below the cap. The EU and UK lowered it to $47.60 in September 2025 and adopted a dynamic mechanism that sets the cap 15% below the average Urals price. That cut it to $44.10 from 1 February 2026. When the 2026 price spike would have raised the cap, the EU's 21st sanctions package of 23 July 2026 froze it at $44.10 until July 2027.

Russia avoids the cap with a "shadow fleet" of older tankers owned through opaque companies and insured outside the West. The EU had listed 673 such vessels by July 2026. In August 2026, 92% of the 168 loaded shadow-fleet tankers tracked by the KSE Institute were more than 15 years old.

On 22 October 2025 the US Treasury sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia's two largest oil companies, with the threat of secondary sanctions on foreign buyers. After the Iran war began, the US issued temporary licences (GL 133 and GL 134) in March 2026 so buyers could take Russian cargoes already loaded. The last extension expired on 17 June 2026.

Drone strikes on ports and refineries

Ukraine's long-range drone campaign is now the largest constraint on Russian supply. Primorsk and Ust-Luga suspended loadings on 25 March 2026 after repeated strikes, and Novorossiysk was hit on 6 April. Russia banned gasoline exports from 1 April. The Sheskharis terminal at Novorossiysk stopped loading in late July. Refinery runs fell to 3.7 million b/d in July, the lowest in more than 20 years, according to the KSE Institute, and the IEA said product exports nearly stopped in September.

Oil revenue and the budget

Oil and gas taxes made up less than 23% of federal revenue by the end of 2025, and the 2026 budget, which assumed Urals at $59, planned about 22%. Higher prices did not offset lower volumes. Finance ministry data show oil and gas revenue of 5.47 trillion roubles in January–September 2026, down 17% year on year, and the 2026 estimate was cut by 1.3 trillion roubles. For how sanctions shape Russian crude pricing, see the Urals oil price guide and what moves oil prices.