Effective husbandry of mineral resources - a myth or reality?

Notions and ideas emergence and development are traced in the article, which render acquiring and industrial-commercial utilization of exhaustible resources, including mineral ones, as an economic activities sphere, distinguished by its outspoken peculiarity. Theoretic and applied scientific conceptions are compared, aimed at the above mentioned processes effective organization and referred to outside Russia as Economics of Exhaustible Resources and/or Mineral Resources Management. It is stressed that alongside with the forefront positions, which Russia occupies in concepts initiating and elaborating, labeled there as Mineral Resources Husbandry or briefly «mineralopol'zovanie», this work is substantially hampered by overwhelming outdated views that have been introduced into Russian economy during its plan-oriented reorganization almost a century ago and are characterized by exaggerated single-sided adherence to administrative commandment methods.