Yukos receives separate evaluation of core production unit: report

MOSCOW (AFP) - US investment bank JP Morgan Chase has reportedly carried out an assessment of the value of the core production unit of Russian oil giant Yukos and sent its conclusions to the embattled firm.

The Interfax news agency report quoted an unnamed informed source as saying that Yukos had received the assessment, which it commissioned itself, but did not state what value JP Morgan Chase had placed on the unit, Yuganskneftegaz.

A Yukos spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the report.

Russian authorities have announced plans to sell the unit to secure payment of back taxes and penalties for a four-year period that could run as high as 14 billion dollars that the government asserts are owed by Yukos.

A separate evaluation of Yuganskneftegaz commissioned by the government and carried out by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein concluded that the unit was worth between 14.7 and 17.3 billion dollars at present.

The independent evaluations of the unit came amid concerns that the Russian government might massively undervalue Yuganskneftegaz in order to place it within the financial reach of Russian companies.

At present, no single Russian company has the cash to secure Yuganskneftegaz.

The lowest value for Yuganskneftegaz contained in the Dresdner report was 10.4 billion dollars -- a "worst-case scenario" pricetag based partly on the contingency that the government could revoke valuable licenses to pump oil.

But it was that value that authorities attached to Yuganskneftegaz, and report afterwards suggested the government could still find ways to drive the unit's value down further before selling it.

Most experts say the unit is worth around 16 billion dollars at present, though Yukos management has asserted that its real value is around 30 billion dollars.

(From Reuter via Yahoo! News, 28.10.2004)