Govt. re-establishes privileged export duty on Vankor oil

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has signed a resolution to re-establish privileged export duty regime for oil from the massive Vankor field in east Siberia, the government website said on Saturday.

The government prolonged the privileged export duty regime for Vankor in October until May when it was canceled.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in March that his ministry saw no reason in extending a privileged export duty regime for the Vankor oil deposit, which belongs to state-run Rosneft.

“Currently, oil prices are high enough and there are no reasons to say that it is difficult to work at this field,” he said.

But Rosneft, then chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, asked for a three-year extension arguing that the current profitability stood at 5% compared to 17% previously set as benchmark for cancelling privileges.

Export duty privileges for two other major east Siberian deposits, Verkhnechonskoye and Talakanskoye, have not been re-established.

MOSCOW, May 28 (RIA Novosti)

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