Kazakhstan 's Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry will introduce a new bill on subsurface use that won't allow joint exploration and production contracts to be signed in the future, Kazakhstan Today news agency quoted the minister as saying Wednesday.
"There won't be joint contracts for exploration and production," Kazakh Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sauat Mynbayev was quoted as saying.
"There'll be separate contracts for exploration and production and a written procedure of how they should be implemented."
The new subsurface bill would also make it clear the way the state would exercise its preemptive right to subsurface contracts, Mynbayev said.
He said contracts would be awarded to those companies that pledge more bonuses and social payments, the news agency reported.
Mynbayev also said the ministry had continued reviewing existing subsurface use contracts and their implementations. Twenty contracts were canceled this year and 84 last year for breach of contractual terms, he was quoted as saying.