Total Looking To Significantly Increase Russia Output

France's Total TOT, Europe's third-largest oil company, is looking to increase its output in Russia in significant fashion over the next decade, aiming to ratchet up its production there by more than 30-fold to 300,000-400,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2020, according to Bloomberg News. The French company, which has been doing business in Russia since 1989, is counting on projects in Russia's area of the Arctic Circle to help achieve the increased output. Total is working on five exploration and production projects with Russian partners, Bloomberg reported. In March, Total paid $4 billion to acquire a 12.08% stake in Russia's OAO Novatek in a bid to gain a 20% interest in the Yamal liquefied natural gas project. Yamal has proven and probable reserves of approximately 800 million barrels of oil equivalent and plateau production of about 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day over the next decade, Total said in a statement. Total currently has a 40% stake in the Kharyaga project in Russian area of the Arctic Circle. The company is also a partner in a Caspain Sea project. Russia, the world's largest energy producer, is believed to be home to some of the world's largest untapped oil discoveries. In 1998, the U.S. Geological Survey said untapped reserves in Russia could be larger than any other country's oil reserves. While estimates vary, Yamal is believed to hold the largest gas reserves in the world and almost 292 million tons of oil. Some estimates have put the total number of recoverable reserves across the entire Arctic region at enough to deliver three years worth of the world's total oil consumption and up to 27 years worth of total natural gas consumption.