Russia's president urged the Cabinet Thursday to draw up a comprehensive energy sector development program that would diversify sources of energy and provide equal access to fuel for all economic operators. "We cannot make the entire national economy work on just one fuel – natural gas," Vladimir Putin said. "This is inadmissible, if only from the point of view of national security."

The president said the government should ensure production capacity is evenly developed all over Russia by providing "equal access to energy for all economic operators throughout the country's territory."

He proposed offering privileged prices for energy supplies to certain sparsely populated regions, from which people have moved out, partly due to the higher-than-average rates.

"We should consider privileged terms for certain territories if we want to develop them, sustaining Russia's presence there in the long term."

earlier related report

TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz win bids for oil sites in Siberian Arctic

Moscow, October 19 – Anglo-Russian joint venture TNK-BP and Siberia-based Surgutneftegaz [RTS: SNGS] have won tenders for licenses to four deposits in North Siberia, worth about 1.2 billion rubles ($43 million), a local administration official said Thursday.

The auction for prospecting and production licenses in the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous Area in Russia's Arctic was held by the local department for mineral resources in the city of Norilsk, the country's northernmost city.

OOO Tagulskoye, a TNK-BP Siberia-based subsidiary, bought licenses worth 879 million rubles (about $33 million) to develop three sites: Taykinsky for 480 million rubles ($17.8 million), Gorchinsky for 210 million rubles ($7.8 million), and Vostochno-Pendomayakh for 189 million rubles ($7 million).

Surgutneftegaz bought a license to the Studeny site for 280 million rubles ($10.4 million).

The sites, located on the Taimyr Peninsula in the far north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, have estimated reserves of 92.7 million metric tons of oil and 60.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The administration's statement quoted Valerian Morozov, head of the Taimyr Autonomous Area's natural resources watchdog, as saying that state-run oil major Rosneft had also bid at the auction, along with regional companies Samotlorneftegaz and Vankorneft.

Source: RIA Novosti