A Russian oil company has been ordered to stop one of its drilling rigs in order to protect a rare species of bird. In an unprecedented move against one of the country's most powerful companies the state committee on the environment has ruled that Lukoil is harming the local population of Great Bustards. However, Lukoil has protested against the move, and has accused its business rivals of being behind the ban. BBC Moscow correspondent Andrew Harding reports:

These are difficult times for the Great Bustard.

Driven out of much of Europe by hunters and farmers, several thousand of the turkey-sized birds have made a home for themselves in the Volga River valley east of Moscow.

But now the Bustards have found themselves caught up in an angry squabble between the Russian Government and one of the country's largest and most powerful oil companies.

Lukoil says the birds could be sitting on a major new oil field.

It has already begun exploratory drilling in the area but the state committee on the environment has ordered Lukoil to stop, saying Russia's Great Bustard population, some 10,000 strong, must be protected.

An indignant Lukoil spokesman said it was the first time this had ever happened to his company.

He said it was unfair, that the drilling was not harming the birds, and that Lukoil was losing $16,000 a day.

The spokesman, Dimitri Dolgov, said he suspected that other rival oil companies were behind the ban.

There is a lot of oil in this region, he said, our competitors are also interested in the project.
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