MOSCOW, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's natural resources minister sacked the top environmental official in a West Siberian region alleging poor oversight of a British gold mining company's operations, a deputy head of the watchdog said Monday.
Minister Yury Trutnev fired Vladimir Rylkov in the Yamalo-Nenets Region for failing to revoke licenses from Britain's Peter Hambro Mining, the second-largest gold producer in Russia, over numerous alleged violations.
"We requested the dismissal, and Trutnev said Friday the decision was made," said Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Natural Resources.
Mitvol sent a request to the ministry November 29 asking it to revoke five licenses from the British company.
"It is strange that even though the local environmental inspectors had serious reasons to revoke the licenses, all they did was charge a 10,000 ruble [$380] fine," Mitvol said, adding that he would look into the inspectors' actions.
Mitvol said Peter Hambro Mining failed to fulfill the terms of its licensing agreements on geological prospecting, and was seriously behind in the schedule and production targets declared in the documents.
"The British company has received more than 50 licenses to do the geological prospecting and produce ore," Mitvol said, adding that his agency discovered 21 violations in the company's operations in 2006, including the illegal use of water resources.
Peter Hambro Mining, which produced 249,000 troy ounces of gold in 2005, will undergo further inspections in the near future. The company is valued at an estimated $2 billion.
The move is the latest in a series of crackdowns by Russian authorities on Western companies involved in mining projects in Russia.
On Friday, Russia's environmental watchdog asked prosecutors to take legal action over ecological violations against the East Siberian Gas Company, which is controlled by the British-Russian joint venture TNK-BP [RTS: TNBP] and is building a gas pipeline in East Siberia.
Another multibillion-dollar project, Sakhalin-II, which is operated by Royal Dutch Shell, has been accused of inflicting heavy environmental damage on Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East, including deforestation, toxic waste dumping and soil erosion.
Trutnev said Friday that Russian authorities had all but lost control over compliance with environmental laws in the development of mineral resources, and called for closer supervision.
