State-controlled oil giant Rosneft was guilty of roughly three-quarters of all oil spills in one of Russia's top oil-producing regions last year, according to a report by the government's environmental watchdog.
According to a report by the Federal Inspection Service for Natural Resources Use, a copy of which was obtained by Vedomosti, 2,727 Rosneft spills were recorded in the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district in 2011.
That figure was 75 percent of the total number of spills last year and 160 times greater than the amount caused by Surgutneftegaz's operations in the region.
The report's authors also noted that while LUKoil managed to reduce its spills by 2.5 times over the past three years, Rosneft only achieved a 20 percent reduction. A Rosneft spokesman declined a Vedomosti request for comment.
"Russia is the world leader in pipeline breaks. The cause is the extremely worn state of our pipelines," an unidentified source in a major oil company told Vedomosti. The source added that there are few incentives for oil companies to take action on spills, since fines remain relatively low.
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