Yukos to ship after transporter fee deadline

Russia's railways expect to keep Yukos oil moving toward ports after Tuesday, when the firm's deadline to pay transport fees expires, a break for the oil company as it fights a potentially ruinous tax charge.

Yukos sources say its bank accounts have been drained and bailiffs say they are skimming any incoming revenues to cover $3.4 billion in back taxes demanded from the Russian oil company.

But the state railway firm said Monday it saw no shipping disruption after Tuesday.

"No supplies will be stopped after August 10. We will continue to work as we have been working in the past because it is in the state's interest," Marina Kovshova, head of Russian state railways' marketing department, told Reuters.

She said Yukos managed somehow to pay railway shipping fees beyond Tuesday, but declined to disclose details.

Yukos has said it paid only through Tuesday to ship some 300,000 barrels per day of oil to ports by rail, a scheme worked out long ago to bypass the crowded Transneft pipeline monopoly.

The potential payment gap raised concerns over supply problems from Russia that have helped to push oil prices up to around record highs.

Shares in Yukos shot up earlier Monday after a court ruling late Friday against bailiffs' seizure of Yuganskneftegaz, its main oil unit. The ruling was deemed the firm's biggest victory in its fight for survival.

The stock was up 12.94 percent at 124 roubles on the MICEX bourse, boosted by the railway comments.

Yukos' troubles are seen by many as being orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish its main owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for political ambitions. The jailed billionaire is now on trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

Transneft has said other producers could easily compensate for lost YUKOS volumes if the oil giant was unable to pay its shipping fees. Yukos railway shipments are the main source of supply concern within the crude oil trading community.

The company supplies up to 300,000 bpd by rail to the Arctic ports of Vitino and Murmansk, Theodossia in Ukraine and China. Other volumes bypassing Transneft go by river to the Black Sea port of Kavkaz.

On the Transneft front, Yukos, Russia's biggest oil exporter, is the major supplier of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Lithuania. The firm has said it had pre-paid fees to Transneft until the end of August.

Still, with appeal hearings due on Monday on the seizure of two other oil producing units, few would speculate on a possible rapprochement between Khodorkovsky and the Kremlin.

On Friday, Yukos lawyers argued successfully that key production units like Yugansk should be the last assets to be sold off for debts.

"If you don't look at all these conspiracy theories, the arrest of Yuganskneftegaz shares clearly contradicted the law," said Renaissance Capital chief strategist Alexander Kim.

Yugansk accounts for more than 60 percent of Yukos' total 1.7 million bpd output, and the planned sale of the unit was potentially the most crippling move threatened by bailiffs charged with collecting the $3.4 billion tax claim that has already been upheld by the court.

Market commentators recalled other short-lived victories in the 13-month onslaught against Yukos and its shareholders. Aton brokerage called the Yugansk ruling "more an aberration than a sign the situation has changed for the better."


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