MOSCOW: Russia, the world's top crude producer, expects its oil export to remain flat in 2012, a deputy energy minister said on Tuesday.
"We plan neither to decrease nor substantially increase the oil export despite surplus in transportation capacity," Yury Sentyurin told reporters.
"We achieved a plateau (of export) of around 250 million tonnes," he added.
According to Energy Ministry data, Russia exported 242 million tonnes (4.9 million barrels per day) of crude oil in 2010.
Russia has been struggling to launch the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga, which was expected to handle around 20 million tonnes of oil a year, as its infrastructure was damaged during construction works.
The port is now expected to be commissioned in the first quarter of 2012.
Crude oil production in Russia has been kept at post-Soviet record high of 10.34 million barrels per day in October and November. Russia expects to sustain its oil output at over 10 million bpd within next 10 years.
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