Economic Aspects of the Sustainable Technological Development of the Oil and Gas Industry in the Context of Low Oil Prices and the Current Situation in the Energy Markets

This article examines the dynamics of oil and gas companies' operating expenses as a factor of technological development. Based on the econometric model built on the basis of panel data, it was shown that with the oil prices plunging, oil and gas companies almost halved operating expenses primarily due to technological development in the field of hydrocarbons' exploration and production. It throws down a significant challenge to the Russian oil and gas industry in efficiency gains of the hard-to-recover oil and gas reserves' development and import phase-out.