“Gazeta”: “Oilmen threatened with huge fines once more”
This time around, the government can punish them for burning associated gas.
The Government has submitted to the State Duma a draft law granting priority access to the country's power grid for electricity generated by burning associated gas. At a meeting on the processing of associated gas, Vladimir Putin announced that the system would enable oil companies to invest in the construction of new generating facilities.
Apart from giving preferred access of electricity to the power grid, as well as direct access of associated gas to the gas transportation system, the draft law will solve the government's task of bringing the use of associated oil gas to the level of 95% by 2012. In addition to incentives, the government will also be introducing fines.
"Any oil companies that fail to comply with this requirement and continue to flare the gas will pay large fines for unauthorised emissions," Putin stated yesterday. Current nature conservation laws already impose fines on any companies that flare gas, but the sums are insignificant.
Today, Russia only uses 74% of associated gas, and the remaining 15 billion cubic metres are flared, according to official information. Similarly, the World Bank's data shows that Russia burned 50.7 billion cubic metres of associated gas in 2004, more than any other country.
"Because of the lack of necessary infrastructure, the fields in Siberia still burn off 20 billion cubic metres of gas," Putin explained yesterday, quickly clarifying that this does not apply to the new fields in Eastern Siberia, which were designed for the maximum use of all resources extracted from the get-go.
Oilmen argue that it is not their fault that associated gas has to be burned in "flares", and that if they could, they would've used the gas. In October, Rosneft filed a complaint with the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service claiming that Gazprom had refused to admit its associated gas to the gas transportation system. It cost Rosneft 167 million roubles, the company claims: 151.8 million roubles for the associated gas contracted and 14.7 million roubles in fines for burning the gas.
