MOSCOW, March 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's mineral resources agency has moved to strip oil and gas company Akhtubaneftegaz of its operating license for an oil field in southern Russia, a Natural Resources Ministry official said Friday.
"The decision was made to withdraw a license for subsoil use from the company," the official said, referring to a field in the Astrakhan Region.
Akhtubaneftegaz has not been available for comment.
The ministry said the agency had uncovered licensing agreement violations by other producers, but had made no decisions on them so far.
Earlier reports said the Federal Agency for the Management of Mineral Resources had considered withdrawing licenses for several fields from state-controlled Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] and independent Russian producer LUKoil.
Russian regulators have conducted a series of checks of oil and gas companies in recent months. Royal Dutch Shell, TNK-BP, and LUKoil are all facing possible license revocation over breaches of environmental rules and contract terms.
Commenting on the agency's session earlier Friday, the official said the Natural Resources Ministry doubted the efficiency of the inquiries into energy producers' licensing agreements.
A deputy head of the Russian environmental watchdog, Oleg Mitvol, said he will discuss the situation with Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev.
The Russian government's environmental watchdog moved in December to strip the state-controlled oil company Rosneft of licenses to develop several oilfields in Siberia.
Rosprirodnadzor said it had sent a request to the mineral resources agency for the revocation of Rosneft's licenses to extract crude from four deposits in North Siberia - Zapadnolodochny, Vostochnolodochny, Nizhnebaikhsky and Polyarny.
An audit conducted by the watchdog earlier that month to check on Rosneft's licensing agreements and its compliance with environmental norms revealed that it lacked approval from regulators to prospect the oilfields, and had no official documents authorizing it to use the land.
LUKoil had been warned that it might lose at least 20 licenses for failure to develop oil and gas fields in West Siberia and the Urals.
