he Russian oil boom, which has produced a gusher of cash, political power and an opulent elite - and has helped fuel the country's renewed assertiveness in Georgia and elsewhere - is on shakier ground than officials in Moscow would like to admit. Most of the oil produced after the country's 1998 financial collapse has come from drilling and re-drilling old Soviet oil fields with more advanced equipment - squeezing more black gold out of the same ground - and efforts to develop new fields have been slow or non-existent. That strategy is potentially disastrous, said Valery Kryukov, who researches oil companies in western Siberia for a government-funded think tank.
Most of the oil produced after the country's 1998 financial collapse has come from drilling and re-drilling old Soviet oil fields with more advanced equipment - squeezing more black gold out of the same ground - and efforts to develop new fields have been slow or non-existent.
That strategy is potentially disastrous, said Valery Kryukov, who researches oil companies in western Siberia for a government-funded think tank.
I have no expertise, but the McClatchy newspapers have a history of finding stories that other, bigger outlets overlook. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
Thr situation for gas is a lot more uncertain, and given that gas is traded only along existing infrastructure rather than globally, it will be a bigger problem for Europe. But the date of decline is harder to predict. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
