Russia comes up with new strategies to stabilize crude output for the next two decades

Russia plans to stabilize its crude output by exhausting all the oil it can get from Soviet-era discoveries as sanctions and declining prices delay new sources, said the country's Energy Minister.

This move will help keep the crude output stable for two more decades, in a report by Bloomberg. According to Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov, this new strategy gives the country a safety cushion up to 2035. He said, "The potential for output growth at oil fields already in operation is higher than in unexplored territories."

Russia has to be prepared as exploration campaigns are slowing down due to lesser investments in the industry. Exploration went down 21 percent for the first 9 months of this year. That is after it increased from 2012 to 2014. However, Russia has consistently broken post-Soviet production records in 2015 as drillers take advantage of the declining ruble. This is good news for Russia, which depends almost half of its revenue from oil and gas. Meanwhile, the Natural Resources Ministry reported that state-run energy firms Rosneft OJSC and Gazprom PJSC are delaying offshore exploration drilling for up to three years.

However, in a new report from Oil & Gas 360, the Russian Finance Ministry Alexander Sakovich said export duty on oil will go down to $88.40 per ton beginning on the first day of December this year. This is a 9 percent decrease from November's $97.10. Besides 50 percent of the country's federal budget, Russia also gets 70 percent of its export revenues from oil and gas, and 25 percent of its GDP from energy exports.

Meanwhile, according to CNBC, market watchers should be concerned about the possibility that Saudi Arabia may stop "punishing" Russia in oil markets if the terror attacks against Paris last week would lead to an agreement to stabilize Syria, said Again Capital founding partner John Kilduff.

Just last month, the average oil prices were $44.33 per barrel, which translates to $323.60 dollars a ton. This is slightly higher than the averaging $47.18 per barrel, which is $344.40 per ton.