ethics
02-11-2005, 02:17 PM
Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev announced on Thursday that neither <b>foreign </b>companies nor <b>Russian businesses controlled from offshore</b> areas would be admitted to auctions for Russia's best oil and gas fields.
What is behind this "liberal" policy? Once you read the explanation, I don't think you can blame them much.
The fields are strategically important, so only companies with no less than 51% of Russian capital will be allowed to bid. The fields in question are Sakhalin-3 (over 600 million tons of crude) and several sites in the Barents Sea (more than 977 million tons) and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area and the Timan-Pechora oil basin (aggregate resources of at least 250 million tons).
In all, more than 250 licenses are on the 2005 sales list, and the "Russians-only" short list includes the Udokanskoye copper deposit and the Sukhoi Log gold field. The latter's reserves are estimated at over 1,000 tons of gold, which puts the minimum starting price at $150 million.
What is behind this "liberal" policy? Once you read the explanation, I don't think you can blame them much.
The fields are strategically important, so only companies with no less than 51% of Russian capital will be allowed to bid. The fields in question are Sakhalin-3 (over 600 million tons of crude) and several sites in the Barents Sea (more than 977 million tons) and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area and the Timan-Pechora oil basin (aggregate resources of at least 250 million tons).
In all, more than 250 licenses are on the 2005 sales list, and the "Russians-only" short list includes the Udokanskoye copper deposit and the Sukhoi Log gold field. The latter's reserves are estimated at over 1,000 tons of gold, which puts the minimum starting price at $150 million.