He presented in Russian parliament's lower house on Wednesday amendments to a 1998 protocol with Kazakhstan on delimitation of the northern part of the Caspian Sea "with the aim of exercise of the sovereign right to subsoil use."

The explanatory note to the draft law says that the protocol simplifies the procedure of the joint development of hydrocarbon resources for "bringing the legal regime of developing the geological structure Tsentralnaya and the deposit Khvalynskoye in conformity with that already effective for the structure Kurmangazy."

Khristenko said that the accords on the delimitation of the Caspian bottom for subsoil use that Russia already has with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan "in a certain degree can serve as a legal model resting on the international law for the regulation of this question by Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan, between which the basin and the bottom remain not delimitated with the aim of subsoil use."

"The agreement on the Caspian envisages both a general regime and the regime of production sharing agreement, and a choice between them is still ahead," Khristenko said, adding that "even if the regime of production sharing agreement is chosen in the development of the two mentioned structures, complications that once arose during the implementation of similar projects in the Russian Far East will not be allowed with it."

Khristenko stressed that the proposed regime of subsoil use in the northern sector of the Caspian Sea "applies only to Russia and Kazakhstan, excluding interference of third countries in the development of mineral subsoil resources by contiguous participants in the agreement."

The chief of the State Duma's committee on CIS affairs and relations with compatriots, Andrei Kokoshin, explained that the "recommendations have been given to the government to pay special attention to adherence to our interests and to conduct a policy that would not allow the transportation of Caspian hydrocarbons bypassing the territory of Russia." Itar-Tass