-Construction starts for Russia’s controversial project
The construction of the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline project, which the Russian energy company Gazprom is running, has started in Germany.
Gazprom's subsidiary, Nord Stream II AG, released a statement last week announcing the start of construction of natural gas reception terminals and a maintenance center in the German city of Lubmin.
The Nord Stream II project, which is expected to cost around $9.5 billion, will see some 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas shipped annually to Germany via the Baltic Sea.
However, the U.S. and Ukraine, Poland and Baltic countries heavily oppose its construction due to claims of Europe’s overdependence on Russian gas. Along with Gazprom, the partners in the project include many western companies such as Shell, OMV, , Wintershall.
-Russia fails to meet oil reduction target
Under the agreement reached with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia could fulfill only 95.2 percent of its oil reduction obligation in April.
Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that Russia is experiencing fluctuations in oil production because of an increase in production sharing agreements.
Novak said Russia reduced its oil production by 285 thousand barrels of crude oil per day, or equivalent to a 95.2 percent conformity level to the OPEC agreement.
In spite of this, Novak said that Russia would continue to do its best to reach a balance for oil production fluctuations to rebalance the market.
Russia pledged to reduce its daily oil production of 11.24 million barrels by 300,000 barrels a day, as a result of the production quota agreement reached with OPEC in October 2016.
-Russia's tomato production on the rise
Russia increased greenhouse vegetable production by 17.7 percent in the first four months of the year compared to the same period last year, according to a report issued by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture.
The report shows production of greenhouse vegetables in the country increased by 17.7 percent in the January-April period of 2018 compared to the same period of 2017 and reached 237 thousand tons.
Cucumber production within the total greenhouse vegetable production increased by 9.5 percent compared to the previous year and reached 181 thousand tons, while tomato production increased by 59.8 percent to 52 thousand tons. According to the report, the regions that produced the most greenhouse vegetables in Russia were Krasnodar, Moscow Tatarstan, respectively.