Although Russia hit a post-Soviet record in its oil production last month, it doesn’t plan to raise output to 12 million bpd by the end of 2018, or in the near term, because this wouldn’t fit Moscow’s economic development plans, Energy Minister Alexander Novak told Russian news agency TASS on Tuesday. In September, Russia’s oil production reached 11.36 million bpd —a record high for the post-Soviet era—after OPEC and its Russia-led non-OPEC allies agreed in June to relax compliance rates with the cuts to 100 percent from the previous over-compliance. The respective leaders of the OPEC and non-OPEC nations part of the deal—Saudi Arabia and Russia—have been interpreting the eased compliance as adding a total of 1 million bpd to the market. Russia has already reversed its entire 300,000-bpd cut that was pledged as part of the initial deal and has been adding production in recent months. This month, […]