L. Fituni, I. Abramova Resource Potential of Africa and Russia's ...

World prices on all types of minerals are subject to substantial
fluctuations with time. During the last 27 years, for example, the
minimum and maximum gold and copper prices differed by a factor
of about 3.5 and 4.6, respectively; the time amplitude varied from 2-
3 to 5–8 years. The use of permanent quality requirements is inadmissible
under such conditions.
To reduce excess profits when prices for a mineral rise sharply, it
is highly advisable to use temporary quality requirements with a respective
decrease in its cutoff grade and minimum economic content.
One of the problems frequently associated with a nation’s rich
resource endowment is alleged widespread corruption linked with
the abuse and manipulations by the government officials in the mining
sphere. African countries and Russia are often presented as possibly
the worst examples of wide spread corruption.
However, this stereotype is not fully applicable in the field of
natural resource management. While the Corruption Perception index
of Transparency International for the Russian Federation continued
to be quite negative in 2010, another important indicator,
which refers to the level of transparency in research management,
was among the best in the world.
The Russian authorities have made their country the world’s
third most transparent nation in the management of mineral resources,
including the production of oil, gas, diamonds and gold.
According to the Revenue Control Index, the most open nation is
Brazil, followed by Norway. The least open is Turkmenistan. The
main exporters of mineral resources, such Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
Algeria, are also trailing the majority of the nations on the list.
The rating is compiled by Transparency International, a nongovernmental
international organization to fight corruption and inquire
into corruption rates the world over and the Revenue Watch Institute,
an international centre for economic analysis. The research
concentrates on the countries making open financial reports on the
production and sale of mineral resources.
Almost all of the 41 countries on the list see the entrails of the
earth as public domain, yet in many of these the general public is
only vaguely aware of the way the authorities dispose of the national
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