As it became known “Kommersant”, the Vice Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev continues to fight for raising the status of its proposal to expand the access of private companies to the Arctic shelf. Mr. speaker, in a letter to first Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov proposed to include this measure in the plan to rebuild the economy from the coronavirus, which is soon to be considered by the President of the Russian Federation. A bill to liberalize access to the shelf you plan to make to the White house in mid-July. However, he has received critical opinion of the Ministry.Deputy Prime Minister Yury Trutnev has proposed to include in the national plan for economic recovery measure to ensure the participation of private investors in the projects on the shelf. The corresponding letter mister Trutnev has written to first Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov at the beginning of June, told the Kommersant” familiar with the text of the document. The initiative of Mr. Trutnev is associated with Ministry prepared a bill that would have allowed private companies to create a consortium to offshore projects with the authorised government of the Russian Federation the company, which share shall be not less than 25.1 per cent. As a company, the Ministry suggested the structure of Vnesheconombank, JSC “development Fund of the Far East and the Arctic”. According to “Kommersant”, the draft sent to Ministry the Ministry, on behalf of Yuri Trutnev to 22 June to review the draft and before July 14, the project must be submitted to the government.National economic recovery plan will determine the priorities of the government of the Russian Federation in the coming years, told “Kommersant” representative Yuri Trutnev. “We believe that one of these priorities is to expand the access of private investors to the projects on the Arctic shelf,— he explained.— The task set in the decree of the President of March 5, 2020 No. 164 “On fundamentals of state policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic for the period to 2035″”. The representative of Andrey Belousova declined to comment. The economy Ministry on the request is not answered.The economic recovery plan, according to the press Secretary of President Dmitry Peskov, will soon be presented to President Vladimir Putin. Purpose in the section of the plan devoted to Energy, comply with the instructions of the President on the results of the April meeting with representatives of the industry (see “Kommersant” on 20 may). On the topic of liberalizing access to the shelf is not raised, and generally in recent years its importance has decreased due to low oil prices and introduced in 2014 Western sanctions.In a letter to Mr. Trutnev said that the state in the framework of the proposed concept will retain control over the implementation of offshore projects, and to provide access to the shelf is planned for December 2020. The letter also reports that the proposal is supported by “Ministry of energy (Alexander Novak)”, ��hile the Ministry was never an active supporter of liberalizing access to the shelf. In addition, the paper reported that the proposal “conceptual” is supported by all relevant ministries. In this project, the Ministry has faced sharp criticism of the Ministry of natural resources (see “Kommersant” on June 10) while the subsoil has not yet expressed an open interest in the idea of Yuri Trutnev.Dmitry marinchenko from Fitch recalls that the development of the Arctic shelf requires huge investments and volatile prices and the risk of falling demand for oil is a high-risk investment. Liberalizing access to the shelf may hit the economic recovery plan, admits managing partner Group Eugene Zharov Zharov. But the national plan now — it is rather a statement of intent and indication of priority areas from the point of view of state policy, he said. Ministry last year developed the concept of the bill for access of private investors to the shelf, but it has not received unequivocally positive assessment from the perspective of investors, nor from the energy Ministry, like the lawyer. According to Mr. Zharov, such an initiative at the current price of oil is not too relevant.Dmitry Kozlov
