"In 2002, Rosneft signed a license agreement with the Chechen republic acting as an oil production operator, and it has been openly violating its conditions ever since," Amadi Temishev said.
"The Chechen oil industry is being wantonly plundered, and oil extraction is conducted with serious violations of all technologies," he said, adding that there are more than a thousand abandoned oil wells in the republic.
"This situation could lead to an ecological disaster," the Chechen official said.
Temishev said that crude production in the republic is plummeting, and in two-three years Chechnya would be able to produce only 600 tons (4,410 bbl) of oil instead of the current 2 million tons (14.7 million bbl).
"Rosneft receives about 25 billion rubles [$930 mln] from sales of oil extracted in Chechnya annually," the minister said.
"But the Chechen budget does not get even a tenth part of these sales," Temishev said, adding that the republic's budget totals only 19 bln rubles ($706.5 mln).
Rosneft said Wednesday it had increased total crude production by 8.4% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2006, to 59.4 million tons (1.59 mln bbl/d).
The oil company held an initial public offering this summer in Moscow and London, the biggest in Russia's corporate history and the world's fifth largest, raising $10.4 billion, and announced it will float futures on the RTS in mid-October.
