The Russian Federation is Preparing a Bill on the Sovereign Audit of Hydrocarbon Reserves
…And their classification is harmonized with friendly countries.
In Russia, a bill is being developed to create a system of independent audit of mineral reserves. In addition, reserve classifications are being harmonized with China, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The task has also been set to create a domestic system of independent confirmation of the qualifications of experts.
Director General of the State Reserves Commission Igor Shpurov said this in an interview with Interfax.
The bill is being agreed upon with the country’s leading mining companies and experts, the head of the State Reserves Committee said. Rosnedra and subsoil users are discussing approaches to the legal regulation of reserve audits. The results may be presented as early as September-October.
“The State Reserves Committee is concerned, first of all, with the system of professional experts and competent persons,” Shpurov noted. – We ourselves are very interested in this, and so are our neighbors – Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, and everyone else. We are discussing this at all levels. In October we will raise this issue at the UN ESCAP session in Bangkok.”
The Russian expert school in the field of subsoil use is one of the best in the world, recalled the General Director of the State Reserves Committee. According to him, domestic experts are regularly involved not only in the state examination of mineral reserves, but also by foreign audit companies.
“But in our country we have not developed a system of official independent confirmation of expert qualifications, unlike the USA, Great Britain and Australia,” he explained. “All experts in all types of minerals were required to be members of professional organizations of experts associated with the Anglo-Saxon countries.”
“And in hydrocarbons it’s even tougher,” continued Igor Shpurov. – Only citizens of Great Britain or the USA had the right to sign there. So our main task is to correct this imbalance.” It is assumed that in the new system, qualified experts will have appropriate credentials regardless of citizenship.
In addition, Russia and China are preparing for mutual recognition of national systems for classifying mineral reserves. Russia and China are the only countries that have confirmed the harmonization of their national systems with the United Nations Framework Resource Classification (UNFC).
“Our classifications not only correspond to the recognized international standard by all countries, but are also comparable to each other,” Shpurov noted. “They may have nuances and characteristics that need to be understood before signing mutual recognition documents.”
Within six months, the harmonization of the systems of Russia and Belarus can be completed.
“Everything is very close in principle with Belarus,” said the general director of the State Commission for Reserves. – At our last meeting in early August, the Russian side spoke about the features of the Russian classification of hydrocarbons. We also agreed to start compiling a case study. Now we are coordinating specific deposits that will serve as examples.”
Today there are about 150 officially recognized classifications in the world. Due to harmonization with the UNFC, the Russian hydrocarbon classification of the Russian Federation is already harmonized with some of them.
