The government plans to define oil deposits holding 70 million tons (513 million barrels) or gas fields with more than 50 billion cubic meters as "strategic fields" under a bill that would bar foreign companies from owning a controlling stake in such resources, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Tuesday at a conference in St. Petersburg. The bill may soon be submitted to the State Duma, he said.
"Competition is welcome, but energy altruism would be very strange," Trutnev said. "Foreign companies will understand this change."
Putin backed state companies over the past 18 months as they tripled their share of the nation's oil output to 30 percent, partly through the government's confiscation of Yukos' biggest unit.
Russia is drafting a bill on subsoil resources that would block foreigners from owning 50 percent or more of its biggest energy and minerals deposits.
The new subsoil bill would limit foreigners to at most 50 percent minus one share in any venture, Trutnev said.
That may cause problems for BP if the British-based company controls 50 percent of its Russian venture TNK-BP, the minister said in response to a question about TNK-BP.
BP controls less than 50 percent of TNK-BP, the company that controls most of BP's Russian assets, said Ivan Gogolev, a spokesman for TNK-BP.
Norway's limits on foreign ownership of oil fields are stricter than those Russia is considering, Trutnev said Tuesday.
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