Kremlin hits new Yukos with new threat

The Russian government has issued a new threat to strip Yukos oil of its production licenses, the Moscow Times reported Monday.

Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev said Saturday that Yukos' main production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, or Yugansk could lose its licenses over what he termed "rather serious" technical violations. Yugansk, which pumps 1 million barrels of crude per day, is already facing the loss of its licenses over unpaid taxes, the newspaper said.

"There is a feeling that Yuganskneftegaz did not comply with the technical regime [of the production license agreement] in a rather serious way on a number of its fields," Trutnev told NTV television on Saturday. "We must verify this," he said, without elaborating on the alleged violations.

Trutnev's comments came two days after the Interfax news agency reported an unnamed government source as saying that Yugansk, slated for sale to cover Yukos' multibillion-dollar back tax debt, could be sold for just over $4 billion -- about one-quarter of what industry analysts have said is the unit's fair value.

Yukos is the largest oil producing company in Russia and one of the largest in the world. But its founder and former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is on trial in Moscow facing charges of fraud and massive tax evasion.

(From : Washington Times, 17.10.2004)