Dumas of oil regions want to liberalize access to the shelf

State Duma will consider amendments to the law on mineral resources, allowing private oil companies to produce on the shelf. This initiative was announced by deputies of the Astrakhan region, with the support of the Nenets autonomous district. The market believes that this is primarily about protecting the interests of Lukoil, which has for a long time, but unsuccessfully trying to break into the shelf, assigned to the state-owned companies Rosneft and Gazprom. Until now, the authorities have refused to change the law, but now the chances of Lukoil and other private oil companies have grown: Western sanctions sharply cooled the enthusiasm of the state-owned companies on the shelf development.

The Astrakhan Regional Duma’s deputies have announced an initiative to change the law on mineral resources, which now gives the right to own offshore areas only to the state-owned companies. "We offered to remove this restriction by expanding the list of Russian companies that have access to the shelf," - said head of the Committee on Industrial Policy of the regional parliament Sergei Saushin to the Kommersant. The bill is planned to be discussed in March.