Russian Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev (right), Russian President's envoy to the Volga Federal District Sergey Kirienko (2nd right) and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov (center) are shown in the Uralkaly company's kalium mine in Perm Region.
Photo: Anton Matveev
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Budget Money to Resolve Oil Production Issues
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov considered ways to increase the national energy resources stock at a session of the government’s commission on the fuel and energy complex yesterday. Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev suggested a remedy for the crisis: boosting governmental funding of exploration works by 15 billion rubles.
Yesterday’s session of the commission on the energy industry focused on Russia’s base of natural resources and declared that the whole industry of natural resources – oil, gas, coal and uranium – is now in crisis.
Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev pointed out that the fuel and energy industry account for 25 percent of the Russian GDP, 30 percent of the total industrial production and over 50 percent of the federal budget revenues. Oddly enough, “the exploration and working-out of the state-owned oil reserves does not exceed 50 percent and production rates of oil wells have halved on the average,” the minister said. Besides that, only 20 percent of the domestic and export demand on uranium is satisfied.
The program on the reproduction of the natural resources stock till 2020 was adopted last year and 255 billion rubles were allocated from the federal budget. The money is primarily spent on increasing exploration works. The natural resources minister is of a high opinion of the program. Operating companies were to put 58 billion rubles in the prospecting but the total of 61 billion rubles was invested, Yury Trutnev reported. Each billion rubles invested in gas and oil exploration will bring “at least 150,000 metric tons of resources,” the minister estimated.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 24, 2006
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