The president has recently signed into law a bill "On
Making Amendments to the Law of the Russian Federation "On
Subsoil" Regarding the Improvement of the Legal Regulation of
Relations in the Field of Geological Survey, Exploration and
Production of Tight (hard-to-recover) Natural Resources" (the
"Law").
The Law aims at improving subsoil legislation of the Russian
Federation (RF) to bring hard-to-recover natural resources into
exploitation, and introduces a new type of subsoil use for the
development of new technology for geological survey, exploration
and production of hard-to-recover natural resources
("Technology Development").
The Law will only come into force on 31 May 2020, because of the
need to adopt subordinate legal acts required for the
implementation of the Law's provisions. The RF Government will
specify particular types of hard-to-recover natural resources for
which the right to use subsoil areas can be granted, as there is no
universally accepted
