UPDATE: Russia can raise starting price for Erginskoye by 1 bln rbl

(adds details in paragraph 1, changes headline)

MOSCOW, Mar 9 (PRIME) -- Russia may raise the starting price at an auction for the Erginskoye oil deposit in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District by one billion rubles from the current 5.35 billion rubles, a Natural Resources and Environment Ministry official told PRIME on Thursday.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi said the deposit will most likely be auctioned until July.

“The timeline of the auction is 2017,” Donskoi told PRIME. “The auction can be held until July if the document (government order) is promptly agreed on with the interested authorities.”

Donskoi said that other terms of the auction, listed in a government order for 2016 will not be revised.

The government planned to auction the right to develop the field for 5.35 billion rubles in early 2016, but the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry introduced the requirement of attracting foreign partners for development of the field. After that some media reported that oil major Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin asked President Vladimir Putin to abolish the requirement. In August, the ministry scrapped it, but it is yet to announce the date of a new auction.

The field’s recoverable oil reserves amount to 18.842 million tonnes under the C1 category and to 83.877 million tonnes under the C2 category, while the field’s oil-in-place reserves reach 64.971 million tonnes under the C1 category and 307.195 million tonnes under the C2 category.

(58.2630 rubles – U.S. $1)

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