Is there light or mist at the end of a tunnel?

And if someone leaves, it will be right away replaced by someone new. These statements become a burden for a speech of the Mazhilis deputy, the secretary of the Committee for Ecology and Subsurface Usage, Valery Kotovich, on a meeting of the Coordination Council of "KazEnergy" Association on Development of Oil and Gas and Energy Sphere.

The deputy right away rejected very often sounded by the last time objections that the amendments to the bowels and subsurface usage legislation initiated and adopted by the Parliament disturb the legislative stability:

- Even in 1994 the legislation on investments had rules according to which agreements for providing national an ecological security could be revised. Thus, all investors knew it could happen.

As known, foreign investors and some lawyers including some local refer to so-called "grandfa excuse".

This funny definition exists to call a principle for lawmaking and law practice when the contract obligations of the government related to previously signed contracts with subsurface users should remain stable no matter how the legislation is changed and how much time left from the moment of contract signature. This means this is somehow a legislative insurance for investors.

Until now the "grandfa excuse" remained a "holy cow" of the Kazakhstani legislation as well as for others. And by the current situation it seems that political practice could continue to pay attention to this excuse. But legal moments seem to be changed.

Anyway, one has said on the "KazEnergy" Association Council that the "grandfa excuse" in its time was born by western lawyers for "third world countries where Kazakhstan is". Anyhow, considerable quantity of Kazakhstani lawyers think like this, and the legal opinion could with time be transferred into administrative practice.

The most important question appearing now is a practical after-effect for Kazakhstani oil extraction once legislative amendments are taken. One may hear apprehensions that it will "scare" investors who will start closing its activities in Kazakhstan or at least will not enlarge it.

Kazakhstani itself using its economic and technological power will not be able to provide many resources development. Especially taking into account the fact that many fields in the county primordially technically and technologically are very hard for exploitation, have many risks and badly developed infrastructure.

Old fields are mostly almost drawn. All together it makes to use difficult technologies ad equipment for the extraction which objectively Kazakhstan does not have. And, one should say, these problems are not only about oil and gas fields, but about metal.

Therefore even hypothetical possibility of complete leave of foreigners could be scary. But Mazhilis deputies, the authors of amendments to legislation, think this should not happen. At any case, as stated Valery Kotovich, once legislative innovations are adopted, Kazakhstan will continue to keep its attractiveness for foreign companies and not from the point of view of natural resources reserves, but from the point of view that the legislation will be comfortable for investors. Thus, recent amendments only removed an option for investors to "skim the oily cream off" keeping nevertheless a possibility to work in Kazakhstan "tasty" enough.

Is it true or false? The clear answer could be given only by time which should pass once amendments have legal effect. However Kazakhstan risks a lot. If Kotovich optimism is not true and investors start to leave, the republic risks to get into complicated situation in extracting sector and via it in the whole economics.

Picture by www.promved.ru