Trutnev Talks New Licenses

By The Moscow Times

May 31, 2011

Russia is preparing to auction "quite a lot" of licenses to oil and gas deposits this year and will soon offer rights to the East Siberian Lodochnoye field, Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Tuesday.

The government should ease laws limiting access to offshore deposits only to Rosneft and Gazprom, which aren't moving fast enough, Trutnev added. All vertically integrated Russian companies should have the right to work on the continental shelf, he said.

The state may sell the rights to develop the largest untapped gold deposit,

Sukhoi Log in Siberia, at auction next year, Trutnev also said.

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