Russia’s 2025 Oil, Gas Figures Challenged by Attacks, Sanctions

Russia expects oil refining volumes and gas production to remain broadly unchanged in 2025 compared to 2024 levels, according to Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev despite sanctions and repeated attacks on energy facilities.
The minister’s statement could be overly optimistic given the extraordinary pressures both sectors face. Ukraine has ramped up drone strikes targeting key Russian energy infrastructure since late July, while gas exports to Europe, once Russia’s largest gas buyer, have shrunk to minimal levels, impacting production.
Russia’s refining throughput fell to 266.5 million metric tons (5.31 million barrels per day) in 2024, a reduction of 200,000 b/d compared to the previous year, as a result of drone damage. Western sanctions created additional problems in sourcing parts for repairing and maintaining the damaged units.
More broadly, from January to July, refining throughput averaged 5.29 million b/d, according to sources close to official data. But runs began to decline in August following the attacks, hitting three-year lows of just 4.9 million b/d in September.
Throughput rebounded in October and November, climbing to over 5.1 million b/d last month.
Deliveries to Russian refineries amounted to 5.3 million b/d in the first eleven months of the year, although around 1.1 million b/d of primary distillation capacity could be currently off line.
Russia’s natural gas production fell 3% year on year to 600.1 billion cubic meters of gas in January-November this year and will likely end up below Moscow’s full-year target, according to a source familiar with upstream data.
In its latest September forecast, Russia’s economic development ministry projected gas production to total 680.2 Bcm this year, down just 0.6% from 2024. But this target now looks overly optimistic, with full-year output more likely to be around 660 Bcm, Energy Intelligence understands.
In April, the ministry even projected 1.7% growth in 2025 gas production.
Russia expects crude oil and gas condensate production this year to amount to 510 million tons (10.23 million b/d), according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, down from 516 million tons (10.29 million b/d) in 2024.
The economic development ministry’s baseline forecast projected oil exports to slide from 245.2 million tons (4.89 million b/d) in 2024 to 240.1 million tons (4.82 million b/d) in 2025. Russian exports to countries outside the former Soviet Union averaged 4.5 million b/d in November. Russia also exports some 250,000-300,000 b/d to neighboring Belarus.
Meanwhile Rosnedra, the subsoil agency of Russia’s natural resources ministry, gave a positive forecast for reserves replacement this year. Alexander Temnov, a deputy director at one of Rosnedra’s departments, was quoted as saying in the State Duma, or lower house of Russia’s parliament, that the country’s anticipated oil reserves growth of around 510 million tons would match production this year. However, gas reserves growth might be lower than extraction levels at around 635 Bcm.
“Companies discovered 39 new hydrocarbon deposits in 2024, and 26 in 2025,” Temnov said. Exploration spending is expected to amount to 350 rubles ($4.4 billion under Russia’s Central Bank current exchange rate) this year, almost 100 billion rubles more than a decade ago, he noted.