LETTER FROM MOSCOW: MARCH 2010

摘要

The government may defer its target to increase the use of associated gas from oil fields to 95% by 2012 by at least one or two years to avoid a possible drop in crude production, or so oil producers hope. Russia's oil companies have repeatedly called for the 2012 deadline to be postponed, but the government has so far turned a deaf ear. "We must act decisively," President Dmitry Medvedev said in late 2009. The current flaring of large amounts of associated gas is "outrageous, with millions of rubles going up in smoke," he said.