Indications of oil and gas occur in European Russia in the northern and central parts of the great Russian Platform, whose gently folded and faulted structure should encourage drilling. Commercial production, however, has been confined almost entirely to the downfolded or downfaulted basins of the south, the Black Sea Basin and the Caspian Basin, as well as the Kura and Kutais basins of Transcaucasia.

Of the vast territory of Asiatic Russia, the most promising part for future oil supply seems be the downfolded or downfaulted basins of Russian Central Asia, filled with folded marine Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary strata; and the highly folded Tertiary beds of the east coast of northern Sakhalin. Some possibilities of oil or gas may exist in the broad plain between the Ural Mountains and Yenisei River, but these remain to be demonstrated. Oil has already been produced commercially in the Emba Basin north of the Caspian Sea, in the Transcaspian Basin east of Caspian Sea, in the Ferghana Basin of eastern Turkestan, and recently in northern Sakhalin.