MOSCOW, July 11 (Reuters) - Russia's biggest oil producerRosneft plans to boost hydrocarbon production byalmost a fifth to 300 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2020by speeding up the development of upstream projects andimproving the quality of drilling, it said late on Friday.
This represents an almost 20 percent increase compared withthe 63.2 million tonnes, or 5.2 million barrels of oilequivalent per day, produced in the first quarter.
It is also a substantial increase on the state-controlledcompany's previous goals. In its previous plans, outlined in2013, the world's largest listed oil producer projected that itsoil output would be almost flat through to 2017 withacceleration to growth of between 3 and 4 percent a yearthereafter.
The newly published plans, announced at a company meetingpresided over by its boss Igor Sechin in western Siberia,include both oil and gas production.
Rosneft said its emphasis on the development of keyproduction assets reflected the macroeconomic situation, currentrisks and the tax regime.
Russia, one of the world's major oil producers, plans toboost crude oil exports and cut overall output of refinedproducts. The country cut oil and oil product exporting dutystarting from Jan. 1 2015, but increased the mineral extractiontax. (Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin. Editing by Jane Merriman)