The bill on liquidation and prevention of spills of oil and oil products caused dissatisfaction of private business
24.06.2020
The Legislative Commission on Legislative Activities approved for the second reading the draft amendments on the prevention and response to oil spills and oil products, said the representative of the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko. The project will be considered at a government meeting on June 25. If adopted, industrialists will have to approve plans in the government in case of spills before the beginning of 2024, as well as form financial support for the elimination of possible accidents.
According to Victoria Abramchenko, the amendments are planned to be adopted in the spring session, "they will allow to work on a systematic basis on the prevention and elimination of spills of oil and oil products." « We establish requirements for the development of onshore oil spill prevention and response plans for all those who actually work with hydrocarbon raw materials and products made from it, by analogy with the already existing legal provisions on the seas and the continental shelf. These are extraction, processing, production, storage and other stages of handling petroleum products, — added Ms. Abramchenko.
The draft amendments on spills were developed two years ago, but now they have been put into action after the diesel fuel spill in Norilsk at CHPP-3 in May MMC Norilsk Nickel.
A similar initiative of the Ministry of Natural Resources to create a liquidation fund for production facilities was also discussed several years ago, but in the end, after criticism from subsoil users, it was never approved. The new project also involves the formation of a reserve of funds at the expense of companies to eliminate spills and compensate for damage.
At the same time, the project spells out different conditions for providing a financial guarantee for private companies and state-owned companies . According to the document (Kommersant has a copy), as financial security in the event of a spill, private industrial companies will have to provide a bank guarantee for the payment of funds in accordance with the plan, or an insurance contract, or a document on the creation of a reserve fund. State-owned enterprises may be limited to a letter of guarantee from an authorized government body, which is unfair to other business representatives, emphasizes the source “Ъ” on the market.
