Participants in the meeting discussed the implementation of fiscal incentives for the oil industry and key issues of calculating severance tax rates for the gas industry. In discussing incentives for the oil industry specific approaches for creating a standard methodology to calculate customs duties for every new project were approved in general. These approaches, which were put forward by the Ministry of Energy, are expected to provide investors with profits of 16.3%. The Energy Ministry is to submit the relevant draft documents to the Government within the next few days. Arkady Dvorkovich instructed the relevant officials to assess the legal and financial aspects of establishing a special expert centre to examine new projects to develop oil deposits. He also ordered a federal law to enable more active development of shelf deposits to be drafted and submitted to the Government for consideration.
The Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance submitted two different severance tax calculation models for the gas industry. After the discussion, the Deputy Prime Minister instructed the relevant departments to reassess these models jointly with companies and to submit detailed calculations regarding these models for subsequent examination at a separate meeting.
The meeting also discussed proposals by oil companies to reduce petrol export duties. The Ministry of Energy, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the Ministry of Finance, which mentioned possible domestic market shortages and possible price increases, opposed any reductions in petrol export duties over the next two years. A Rosneft representative supported their stance. After the discussion, the relevant ministries were instructed to formulate their consolidated stance by the end of April.
Denis Khramov, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, and Alexander Popov, Head of the Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency, reported on the fulfillment of instructions to improve subsoil resources management legislation and to re-register licenses for the development of federal mineral resource deposits. Previous instructions have not been fulfilled, Arkady Dvorkovich said. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment was instructed to submit the required draft documents to the Government as soon as possible.
Commission members also discussed the issue of introducing changes to licenses for the development of federal mineral resource deposits. For instance, several options were suggested for the Trebs and Titov oil fields. During the discussion it was decided to submit additional materials and to conduct a vote in absentia.
After the meeting, members of the Government Commission observed a minute's silence in memory of the deceased Rem Vyakhirev.
