Energy Blast – May 8, 2012

The Chief Executive Officer of Russia’s largest non-state oil producer, Lukoil, has fueled stock market gains for the company after suggesting that he expects President Vladimir Putin will relax rules restricting access to offshore fields to government-controlled companies.  Norwegian oil and gas firm Statoil has described its major Arctic drilling program with Russia’s Rosneft, which will get underway in 2015 0r 2016, as a ‘high risk project’.   Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is pumping at around 10 million barrels per day and is storing 80 million barrels to counter any unexpected disruption in supplies.