LUKoil [RTS: LKOH] is planning to increase its natural gas production in Russia by 30% year-on-year to 15 billion cubic meters in 2008, the Russian company's gas production chief said on Tuesday according to RIA Novosti.
Associated petroleum gas is expected to account for 6.3 billion cu m of gas produced in Russia, compared to 5.3 billion cu m last year, Nikolai Mikhailov told a conference on gas processing in Russia.
He said the company plans to produce 5 billion cu m abroad this year.
LUKoil produced just under 14 billion cu m of gas last year, including 2.5 billion cu m overseas.
Mikhailov said investment in processing associated gas would stand at 20 billion rubles in 2008-2010, compared to 15 billion rubles invested for the purpose over the last five years.
He said the processing levels of associated gas are 70% and that petroleum gas production will increase to 7.9 billion cu m by 2010 and to 8.8 billion cu m by 2015, while 2020 will see output decline to 8.4 billion cu m.