Less is better

The Ministry of Natural Resources proposed to reduce the mineral extraction tax for small fields

The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Finance, as it became known yesterday, began work on a bill that is designed not only to stimulate additional oil production, but also to provide access to the subsoil for small companies. We are talking about introducing a reduction factor to the mineral extraction tax (MET) rate for small deposits. However, according to industry sources, the effectiveness of this long-overdue measure will depend on the magnitude of the benefits provided.

At the beginning of the week, in the city of Almetyevsk in Tatarstan, representatives of federal ministries and local oil companies discussed issues of state stimulation of raw material production. In particular, they discussed the development of small and ultra-small oil fields and assistance to small businesses in this segment. As a result, yesterday the Ministry of Natural Resources announced the start of joint work with the Ministry of Finance on a draft law, according to which for fields with recoverable oil reserves from 1 to 3 million tons it is planned to introduce a reducing coefficient to the mineral extraction tax rate at the level of 0.75, and for ultra-small deposits, up to 1 million tons, -- 0.5. According to Deputy Head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Sergei Donskoy, this measure will allow the development of a significantly larger number of small fields being discovered in mature oil and gas provinces.

However, according to the General Director of the Association of Small and Medium Oil and Gas Producing Organizations Elena Korzun, the indicated coefficients could be changed in the process of working on the bill. “This measure is certainly useful. But it could have an even more positive effect if the mineral extraction tax rate for small companies developing such deposits were reset to zero,” Ms. Korzun believes. Director of the Institute of Energy and Finance Leonid Grigoriev agrees with her. According to him, although the development of small deposits is associated with a large number of technological difficulties, production from them can be extremely profitable. “Every country that produces a lot of oil faces the problem of inequality in the resource base of its subsoil. Most countries are trying to squeeze the maximum out of small deposits, the expert said. - To prevent them from disappearing, the United States introduced almost negative tax rates. In Russia, the wrong choice was made in favor of equal tax conditions, which actually undermined the process of searching for new deposits with small reserves of raw materials.”

According to the director of the Institute of Oil and Gas Problems, Anatoly Dmitrievsky, the introduction of a lower rate to the mineral extraction tax will make it possible to stop the process of small oil producing enterprises disappearing from the market. “In the United States, up to 40% of the oil produced is produced by small companies that own only two or three wells. In our country, even before the crisis, the situation of small enterprises was far from the best; now they are becoming completely uncompetitive, and their number is constantly decreasing,” the expert complained. He also added that corporations are unlikely to take bread from their smaller colleagues, since their area of ​​interest lies mainly in deposits with reserves significantly exceeding the designated three million tons.

Petr GELTISHCHEV