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Russia to monitor upstream, downstream oil with single system

https://www.chemnet.com   Aug 11,2010
Russia's energy ministry is developing a united monitoring system to review the county's oil production, transportation and refining in order to make the industry more transparent and reduce the illegal oil trade, a ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.


The ministry announced the "Oil Control" concept in a statement late Monday, saying that the government's commission on the fuel and energy complex approved the concept on Thursday.


"The details of the Oil Control system are currently under development and there isn't a deadline yet for when it will be ready," the spokeswoman said.


The system is to provide accurate information about the production, distribution and movement of crude and oil products across Russia, as well as
crude and oil products export and transit, including sea and rail terminals,
the pipeline system and tank farms.


The system is also to balance all production, distribution and demand for crude and oil products to eliminate losses to the state budget from illegal
production, refining and export, the ministry said.


"It will be a unified system that will monitor all input and output, rather than the current system in which various agencies monitor individual parts of the industry," the spokeswoman said.


The Oil Control system is expected to make the Russian oil market more transparent and reduce the size of Russia's shadow oil market, thereby reducing losses to the federal budget, the ministry said.


The ministry plans to work on preventing crude oil theft and to better control Russia's so-called mini-refineries, or small-scale refineries, which have been accused of producing sub-standard oil products and not paying taxes.


"Mini-refineries will need to report their activities within the framework of the system, but they are not the only target, or even the most important target," said the ministry spokeswoman, without elaborating.
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