Russian Government Approved Fields To Auction

The Russia?s Ministries of Natural Resources and the Economic Development and Trade have approved the list of minerals areas to be auctioned in 2005, according to press release of the former, RIA Novosti reports.

Under the list, 180 areas with raw hydrocarbons, 4 of which on the continental shelf, and 38 with solid minerals will be put up for auction.

It is planned "three months after the adoption of the new wording of the Law on the Mineral Resources" to put up for auction four areas on the shelf of the Barents sea, the fields Sakhalin-3, Magadan-1 and Magadan-2 on the Okhotsk sea.
The Sukhoi Log gold-bearing field is not in the list.

Sukhoi Log lies in the north of the Irkutsk region in Siberia and is the biggest in Eurasia. Its reserves constitute over 1,000 tons of gold.