KAZAN, August 26. /TASS/. The share of hard-to-recover reserves in the structure of liquid hydrocarbon production in Russia currently amounts to more than 30% and it is expected to continue to increase in the future, head of the Federal Agency for Mineral Resources Oleg Kazanov said.
"The share of production (of oil) from hard-to-recover reserves is consistently increasing. At present, the share of hard-to-recover reserves in the production structure is already more than 30%, and it will continue to increase because in the structure of reserves this share is 52%, according to Rosnedra. Therefore, there are no other scenarios except to increase the share of hard-to-recover oil in production," he said.
Russia reproduces its reserves through geological exploration, with the increase averaging from 500 mln to 1 bln tons of liquid hydrocarbons per year, Kazanov added. The country's liquid hydrocarbon reserves currently stand at 31.2 bln tons, including 19.1 bln tons of proven and 12.1 bln tons of estimated reserves requiring preparation for industrial exploitation, he noted.
"In the long term, it is important to increase investment in geological exploration, and, first of all, in the early stages, including in new regions," the official stressed.