Russia to increase oil output says Putin

Last week I linked to a piece from The Economist that talked about a drop in Russia's oil production (if you have to feed a car like I do, then you know oil prices are an important thing these days). Well former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia is taking steps to increase oil production over the next few years.

Putin told a meeting in France that Russia would lower taxes on both oil production and exploration. High taxes are one of the main reasons that production in Russia has started to fall off - its more profitable for companies to work existing oil fields, but the amount of oil coming from these fields is starting to decline. The drop in taxes should spur the development of more oil fields in northern Siberia and Russia's Far East.

Russia is the world's second-largest producer of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia.