Strategic Energy Map

Oil field

Samotlor

Russia (West Siberia). Once world's largest producing field.

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Overview

Russia (West Siberia). Once world's largest producing field. Peak ~3.4M bpd in 1980. Now ~300,000+ bpd. Discovered 1965. ~28 billion barrels produced to date.

Geopolitical context

Samotlor's production trajectory is a parable of Soviet-era resource extraction: aggressive development produced extraordinary output but damaged the reservoir, and post-Soviet underinvestment accelerated decline. Rosneft (state-controlled since the Yukos seizure) now operates the field. The broader West Siberian basin's maturity is why Russia has had to develop increasingly challenging East Siberian and Arctic fields to maintain output — a trajectory that Western sanctions on drilling technology are designed to disrupt.

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