Sergei Fedorov, the head of the ministry's department for government policy, and geological and mineral resource regulation, said last year the ministry intensified work to boost the hydrocarbon base in East Siberia's new undeveloped areas, and work on deficit and strategic types of natural resources.
According to Fedorov, the Natural Resources Ministry, the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use (Rosnedra) and the Federal Nuclear Power Agency (Rosatom) endorsed a medium-term plan in 2006 to develop the country's mineral and raw materials base and develop uranium deposits.
"The plan's implementation will help create a strong resource foundation to build up industrial category reserves. As a result, Russia will be able to almost entirely satisfy its requirements for nuclear raw materials," he said.
The ministry official also said that in 2006, his ministry drafted a program of parametric drilling in Eastern Siberia to build up the hydrocarbon base in the region for the East Siberia-Pacific pipeline.
The pipeline is slated to pump up to 1.6 million barrels per day of crude from Siberia to Russia's Far East, which will then be sent on to China and the Asia-Pacific region.
Fedorov also said his ministry is prioritizing work to draft a program in 2007 to study prospects of deep-horizon oil and gas resources in the Western Siberia.
