Five years ago Russia's rapidly growing oil exports were seen as the cure for the US and Europe's addiction to Middle East oil, international oil companies' most exciting potential source of revenue and the only thing that could quench China's insatiable new thirst.

But today Russia is bracing itself for its first production decline in 10 years. Last month, it failed to increase output for the third month in a row and closed the first quarter with a 1 per cent production decline, which pushed the total to 9.76m barrels per day. Last year, oil output climbed 2.3 per cent to a post-Soviet high of 9.87m bpd, according to the energy ministry.