Yukos founder accuses Russia of destroying top oil firm

MOSCOW (AFP) - Yukos' jailed founder accused the government of "destroying" the nation's top oil group as mystery surrounded the new owner of its crown jewel, widely seen as a cover for state-run gas giant Gazprom.

In an auction cloaked in secrecy on Sunday, the Russian authorities broke up Yukos, the country's largest oil producer, selling its main subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz to an unknown entity, Baikalfinansgroup, for 9.35 billion dollars (7.02 billion euros).

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos' main shareholder and a powerful Kremlin opponent who has been behind bars since October 2003, lashed out over the sale as lawyers for the ousted proprietors threatened legal action that could last for years.

"The state has offered itself a wonderful Christmas present, destroying the most efficient oil company in Russia," the billionaire tycoon said in a statement released by his lawyers as he appeared in court for a trial hearing.

Although Gazprom denied it was connected to the successful bid, observers were of the view that it had employed a scheme to sidestep the threat of US lawsuits from Yukos.

"Gazprom used a front to buy Yuganskneftegaz," leading Russian daily Izvestia splashed across its front page.

"By hiding behind a completely unknown company, Gazprom is seeking to protect itself from US justice," the newspaper said.

Gazprom, a vast opaque company that is the world's largest gas producer, had been seen as the favourite to win the auction, fulfilling a Kremlin ambition to restore state control over vital oil resources.

But a US court order obtained by Yukos in Houston, Texas, last week barring Gazprom from participating in the sale had raised the threat of damaging US legal action and the gas monopoly at the last minute withdrew from the bidding.

Baikal, a firm with no telephone and an address in Tver, a city north-west of Moscow, was only registered as a company on December 15, the Vremya Novostei daily reported.

Yukos has vowed to sue any new owner of Yugansk and lawyers for its main shareholders said Monday that they would take legal action in the United States and Europe once the identity of the ultimate buyer was clear.

"We will be litigating against the new owner and other parties. The concept of using a shell in order to shield Gazprom is definitely a possibility." Sanford Saunders, a US lawyer acting for the Yukos shareholders, told AFP by telephone from London.

"There will be multiple claims, in the US, Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe," he said. Yukos lawyers have warned they would seek to impound Gazprom's gas exports.

Baikal, which won the auction in the best traditions of the murky Russian 1990s privatizations, may in fact represent Kremlin-friendly private oil firm Surgutneftegaz, which could resell the asset to Gazprom later, reports said.

A government official close to Gazprom management said that the aim of the transaction was to avoid US legal action.

"The most simple method today (for Gazprom) is to buy Yugansk from a totally unknown winner of the auction and become a legally-irreproachable owner," he told Vedomosti.

The forced sale represents a death blow for Yukos, which Khodorkovsky had built it into Russia's most Western-like company before he was arrested at gunpoint on his corporate jet on a Siberian airfield to face trial on fraud and tax evasion charges.

Yugansk pumps a million barrels a day, which represented about 60 percent of oil produced by Yukos, and accounted for more than 70 percent of its reserves.

The sale of 76.8 percent of Yugansk was officially to pay off massive tax bills of 27.5 billion dollars levied on Yukos, denounced by the company as a state-directed expropriation.

Russian officials said Sunday they would proceed with other Yukos asset sales to settle the remaining tax debts, estimated at about 9.3 billion dollars since some of the bill has already been paid off from oil revenues.

But lawmakers from the nationalist Rodina party, usually supportive of the Kremlin, said they were dissatisfied with the auction and said they would ask prosecutors to investigate.

"We suspect that the auction was not organised in a transparent manner," the party's leader Dmitry Rogozin said.

(AFP via Turkish Press, 12.20.2004)