A draft law providing private companies with access to the Russian shelf will shortly be submitted for consideration by the government, Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev told the media.

"We have already seen it. It is indeed all ready for submission to the government. There are only a few minor technical issues left to fix. I think the bill will be submitted very soon. It is all ready," Trutnev said.

"We have two documents that are being finalized. One is to grant companies access to the shelf and the other one concerns tax relief for Arctic projects. There is one more document in the pipeline which is the development plan for the Northern Sea Route. I saw it for the first time recently. It is a very thorough plan, with all the layers such as communications, security and transportation, worked out separately," Trutnev added. 

At a meeting in late August, deputy prime ministers Dmitry Kozak and Yury Trutnev decided to draft a bill that would expand the list of companies with access to the Arctic shelf. Right now only Gazprom and Rosneft are allowed to operate there. The access was discussed only with respect to the 10 percent of the shelf licenses that remain to be allocated.

Trutnev earlier suggested allowing foreign and private companies to operate on the Russian Arctic shelf based on the Norwegian model — in a consortium with a state-run operator.