Key Yukos unit may lose oil license

Russia's Resources Ministry will decide in two weeks whether to revoke the production licenses of oil major Yukos' key Siberian unit Yugansk after it stopped paying taxes, a ministry source said on Friday.

The move is a fresh blow for Yukos, whose accounts are already frozen by bailiffs seeking to secure payment of over $7 billion in back taxes for 2000 and 2001.

It also puts time pressure on investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which the state hired last month to value Yugansk for sale to raise money to cover the tax debt.


"After analyzing the way the licenses' terms are fulfilled our specialists have concluded that non-payment of taxes is a serious enough reason to suspend licenses and revoke them through court procedures," the source told Reuters.

He said the Tax Ministry sent a complaint this week that Yugansk, which produces 60 percent of Yukos' crude, had stopped paying current taxes.

Yukos, Russia's top oil exporting firm, has said that a freeze on its bank accounts imposed by bailiffs means it can no longer pay its taxes or fund daily operations.

The source said Yugansk owed a total of 3.55 billion roubles ($121.5 million) in taxes, due this and last month.

Yukos was quick to criticize the threat. "President Vladimir Putin asked journalists this week to name officials who wanted to bankrupt Yukos and promised to fire them," Yukos' spokesman Alexander Shadrin told Reuters.

"I think we know now where these officials are."

Shares of Yukos, which have lost nearly three quarters of their value since April, lost all their session gains of six percent on the news, but soared later on Friday to close nine percent up at 128.5 roubles on the MICEX bourse.

Traders said the rally was due to Western buying on rumors that Yukos had finally managed to clinch a deal to demerge itself from former partner Sibneft and could get an extra $3 billion.

Others said market participants were aggressively closing short positions ahead of the weekend. In London, Yukos shares rose almost eight percent to $17.35.
Dresdner under pressure

Yukos' tax troubles are part of a broader campaign seen by many as being orchestrated by the Kremlin to punish Yukos' main owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky for political activities. He is now on trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.

On Thursday, Khodorkovsky predicted he would be stripped of Yukos and reiterated he was ready to cede control to avoid a brutal dismantlement of his firm.

The state claims Yukos owes $3.4 billion in back taxes for 2000 and $4.1 billion for 2001. It is also checking 2002-2004.

On Friday, Yukos lost the last appeal against claims for 2000 after the deadline to pay the bill expired in August.

Interfax news agency also reported that a Moscow court would start a hearing into the tax ministry's $1.4 billion back tax claim for 2001 on September 24. The ministry has already started collecting $2.7 billion without going to court.

Analysts believe the state would not seek to paralyze Yukos' production activities to avoid Western criticism for fueling global supply disruption fears and pushing oil prices further from their current peaks.

The threat of licenses withdrawal is not the first from the resources ministry, which said last year it may revoke some deposits from the troubled major. But President Vladimir Putin at the time criticized the idea, which was never implemented.

Banking sources said last week Dresdner could come up with a valuation of Yugansk before the end of September, but the valuation would be a range of figures taking into account different scenarios rather than a single figure.

Analysts put Yugansk's value at around $15 billion, although they say one of the valuations in the range could be much lower if Dresdner decides to take into account political risks, such as the possibility of licenses' withdrawal.

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