The auctions will have diverse arrangements, some of them closed, said the minister. "The number of auctions will be limited," he pointed out. Other interested offices will take part in decision-making to appoint open or closed auctions.
Mr. Trutnev expects an updated version of the law, On Mineral Resources, to be passed toward the end of the first half-year 2005.
As the list has it, a Project Sakhalin 3 auction will be held three months after it is adopted.
The Sakhalin regional administration and the Sakhalingeolcom regional geological office joined hands with geological companies, September 1992, to offer lucrative sites for international contests to break up oil- and gasfields. The East Odoptinsky site came as part of Project Sakhalin 3.
The federal government and the regional administration jointly held an initial international contest for the East Odoptinsky, 1993. The site was divided in three blocks for the purpose-the East Odoptinsky proper, the Ayash and the Kirin. The Exxon Neftegas Ltd. won the East Odoptinsky, and the Mobil and Texaco the Kirin.
In compliance with a Russian legislative package adopted in 1998, Russian capital investors must necessarily take part in consortiums who exploit mineral deposits on production-sharing agreements. Thus, the Russian-based Rosneft, Rosneft/Sakhalinmorneftegas and Sakhalin Petroleum-the latter a regional government unitary company-are expected to be involved in the three blocks of Project Sakhalin 3. Production-sharing terms are being debated at the negotiation table for all the blocks.
The Rosneft and the KNOC-Korea National Oil Corporation-signed a memorandum of mutual understanding, toward last month's end, together to open up and exploit the Veninsky block of Project Sakhalin 3 and a part of the Sea of Okhotsk West Kamchatka shelf. The Rosneft has been licensed to open up the Veninsky and the shelf site. To take two years and a half, the project demands US$250 million invested-150 million of the total for Kamchatka geological prospecting, and 100 million for Project Sakhalin 3, says Sergei Bogdanchikov, Rosneft president.
An Udokan copper deposit auction has been listed for next March. The deposit is roughly estimated at 20 million tonnes of copper-a fabulous 58 per cent of Russia's total inferred copper reserves. Quarriable ore contains 2.5 per cent of copper. The initial Udokan stage will dress an annual 15 million tonnes of ore. It will take $250 million to get it going, say preliminary estimations.
