MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti) - The development of the oil and gas deposits on continental shelf in the northern seas will become a major priority of the Russian Federation's government for the period of up to 2020.
As a source in Russia's government told RIA Novosti, the State Strategy of the Exploration and Development of the Oil and Gas Potential of the Russian Federation's Continental Shelves till 2020, which Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources will present at the government's session on Thursday, contains a respective decision.
The Natural Resources Ministry believes that, as a result of the implementation of the strategy, 13 billion tons of oil reserves and 20 trillion cu m of gas reserves will be explored. "Presumably, by 2010 oil output will reach 10 million tons, and 95 million tons by 2020. By 2010 the output of gas may amount to 30 billion cu m, and it will increase to 320 billion cu m by 2020," the agency's interlocutor went on to say.
By the Natural Resources Ministry's estimate, the budget's total revenues from the sale of oil and gas will run into $100-130 billion by 2020.
As the source notes, the development of the shelves in the northern seas, despite their low investment attraction, is a necessity for Russia. "As much as 75% of the explored deposits have now been developed in Eastern and Western Siberia, and the exhaustion of these deposits reaches 50%," the agency's interlocutor noted. According to him, despite this, oil and gas will remain the dominating energy products till 2030. In spite of the low level of the exploration of the shelf deposits, such deposits as the Shtokman, Rusakov, Leningrad and Sakhalin ones have already been discovered.
To attract investors, it is intended to draft a separate programme which will contain tax and customs benefits, in particular, in abolishing the customs duties on imported craft and scientific-technical equipment.
