Mining business: a preferential investment tool has been prepared for oil companies
It is planned to involve the state in investing in large-scale oil projects. To do this, the State Duma proposes to use the mechanism of special investment contracts (SPIC). Currently, the government restricts their use in the extraction, transportation and storage of hydrocarbons. At the same time, the advantage of special investment contracts is significant tax breaks, which makes the project profitable. Izvestia investigated whether the use of SPIKes would help implement large-scale projects to create a strategic oil reserve.
What is SPIC and what is the initiative?
In Russia, it was proposed to expand the use of special investment contracts (SPIC) in the oil industry. Yuri Stankevich, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Energy, made such an initiative at a meeting of the State Council commission on Energy within the framework of the Tatarstan Petrochemical Forum 2025. The proposal was included in the protocol of the event dated September 18 (available to Izvestia). The document will be sent to the government to prepare a review.
Under the conditions of sanctions pressure, restrictions on the supply of high-tech equipment and means of production to Russia, the issue of increasing investment activity is becoming a priority, it directly affects national economic security, said Yuri Stankevich.
According to him, the mechanism of special investment contracts has proven its effectiveness over the 10 years of its existence, and both the president and the prime minister speak about the need to expand its scope.
"Let me remind you that the legislative changes introduced in 2019, on the one hand, increased the requirements for new technologies for the production of industrial products, but, on the other hand, doubled the duration of contracts, eliminated the entry threshold for minimum investments, and lifted the time limit for the application of tax benefits," he told Izvestia.
Nevertheless, according to the deputy, the regulatory legal acts of the government still limit the scope of application of the SPIC for the fuel and energy complex.
— Today, the conclusion of a contract is possible for the oil refining, gas processing, petrochemical, coal and electric power industries. The issues of extraction, transportation, and storage of hydrocarbons remain outside the brackets. The issue of updating the list of modern technologies that meet the criteria of the best available technologies also needs to be discussed with regulators," says Yuri Stankevich.
In addition, the MP recalled that the process of agreeing on the 2050 Energy Strategy clearly demonstrated that every year it will be more difficult to keep oil production at over 500 million tons. There are only two ways to prevent a landslide decline: through the widespread introduction of technologies that increase oil recovery in exploited fields, and access to new provinces belonging to the Arctic shelf.
— Previously, work in these areas was directly linked to the use of Western technologies, from which we are currently cut off, and the prospects for resuming cooperation are extremely illusory. The availability of SPIC for the upstream sector (which includes prospecting, exploration, drilling, and production of oil and natural gas) will create guarantees for investors to return funds to highly complex projects with a long payback period. It is for these reasons that the issue of expanding the SPIC mechanism was raised in August 2025 at a meeting of the State Council commission on Energy," he said.
According to Yuri Stankevich, "the decision on this issue should be made by the government, the position of the Ministry of Finance is secondary, since the goal setting is based on the fulfillment of the tasks of the Energy Strategy 2050."
Izvestia sent inquiries to the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, as well as to large companies such as Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, and Transneft.
A SPIC is an investment agreement between an investor and the state, under which the investor undertakes to implement an industrial project on the territory of the Russian Federation, and the state provides subsidies and benefits in exchange. Its use in Russia was introduced in 2015. Until 2019, such contracts were concluded for up to ten years and did not impose strict requirements on the technologies used in the implementation of the project. An updated version of the mechanism has been in effect since 2020. Updated SPIC contracts are concluded for a longer period (up to 15 years for projects with investments of up to 50 billion rubles, up to 20 years for projects worth over 50 billion rubles). Such a tool has proved its effectiveness in the oil refining, gas processing, and petrochemical industries of the fuel and energy complex.
Where the SPIC is applied
As an industry source told Izvestia, this summer the Ministry of Industry and Trade approved the use of SPIC for a project to build a complex for the production of lubricants and lubricants from LLK International in the Vologda Region. The income tax rate for the project in the federal part for the duration of the SPIC will be 0% instead of 8% and 5% instead of 17% in the regional part. At the same time, according to the source, the property tax will be 0% for five years after the conclusion of the contract and 1.1% thereafter.
The SPIC will provide an economic benefit for the company in the amount of 5.2 billion rubles. In addition, for the duration of its validity — until the end of 2032, the so-called "grandfather clause" will be in effect, prohibiting any change in tax parameters for the project.
Olga Orlova, Head of the Industry department at the Institute of Oil and Gas Technologies, notes that special investment contracts provide for a number of tax benefits and are an effective tool for attracting investment and stimulating economic growth.
— Their use was introduced 10 years ago, when the state needed to attract investments in strategically important industries, including those aimed at achieving technological sovereignty. Now there is a need to expand the scope of their application. The Energy Strategy includes a plan to produce 540 million tons of oil per year by 2050, and for this it is necessary to double investments in the industry. Currently, they amount to about 4 trillion rubles a year," she notes.
By the end of 2024, oil production in Russia amounted to 516 million tons per year, and under the inertial Energy Strategy scenario, it is projected to decrease to 360 million tons per year by 2050.
On a systematic basis, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs declares the importance of the development of the SPIC Institute. According to Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, after 2022, the need for capital investments has increased due to the forced replacement of previously imported components and equipment.
In addition, as Yuri Stankevich recalled, at a meeting with members of the government in May this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin set a goal to attract at least 10 trillion rubles to priority industrial projects by 2030, including through improving the efficiency of the SPIC.
SPIC and infrastructure projects
Ekaterina Kosareva, Managing Partner of VMT Consult, believes that despite the need to increase investments in production, it is unlikely that it is with such projects that the conclusion of a SPIC is possible.
— I believe that mining will still remain outside the brackets of such projects. Despite the high tax burden, everything that is currently being mined is profitable. But infrastructure projects that are important for the country could be implemented using SPIC. Here we can talk about both pipelines and the construction of facilities for the strategic oil reserve. A few years ago, Russia studied this issue. At that time, the construction of raw material storage facilities was estimated at $20 billion," she says.
For the development of infrastructure projects, public-private partnership is of key importance, as well as the signing of key agreements that define the terms of co-financing and make it possible to fix the key parameters of the project, said Tamara Safonova, Director General of the Independent Analytical Agency for the Oil and Gas Sector (NAANS-Media).
"If the state participates in special investment contracts, then the investor already has greater security regarding the independent implementation of new projects," she said.
According to Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government, the creation of storage systems is one of the most important tasks of the Russian fuel and energy complex today.
— Similar storage facilities exist in some foreign countries, in particular the USA and China, which allows them not only to ensure their national energy security, but also to balance global markets. Thus, in the event of a significant increase in world prices for black gold, the United States "prints out" its vaults and, through commodity interventions, contributes to a drop in quotations, the expert notes.
According to him, there are no similar reserves in Russia, which can lead to negative consequences. As a result of the creation of the OPEC+ alliance, Russia was forced to reduce its own production, which led to the plugging of a number of wells. Their restoration is a technologically complex and costly process. If our country had the storage capacity, it would be able to increase oil supplies abroad in a short time without significant additional costs.
— We see what the lack of oil products storage systems leads to. In the summer, the increased demand for fuel leads to its shortage and rise in price. As a result, the authorities are forced to resort to drastic measures, including restrictions on gasoline exports. The availability of storage facilities at the state or corporate level would allow fuel shipments to be "thrown" onto the market during a period of increased demand, thereby restraining price increases, Valery Andrianov believes.
In this regard, incentives are needed to create energy storage systems, including SPICS, while both energy producers themselves and traders trading them on the domestic and foreign markets may be interested in their creation, concluded Valery Andrianov.
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