Chevron interested in assets of ruined Russian oil company Yukos

Feb 9, 2007, 14:03 GMT

Moscow - US oil major Chevron is looking into buying assets of Yukos, the onetime Russian oil major driven to bankruptcy, the organizers of a Yukos asset auction said Friday.

'Letters expressing interest in acquiring Yukos assets have indeed come from a number of major international companies, including Chevron,' the auction's organizers said in a statement, Interfax reported.

Chevron representatives in Moscow refused to comment on the reports.

The statement came one day after Gazprom, Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly, announced that unnamed US companies were interested in the assets. The announcement followed a meeting between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and US Ambassador to Russia William Burns.

Yukos, once Russia's biggest private oil company, was torn asunder beginning in 2003 after federal prosecutors claimed the company owed some 25 billion dollars in back taxes.

The firm was pronounced bankrupt last August, after a court ruled that the company's outstanding debts were greater than its estimated 22 billion dollars in remaining assets.

Those assets include a number of refineries, filling stations and stakes in state-owned Gazprom Neft - the oil firm formerly known as Sibneft - and Rosneft, Russia's government-controlled top oil producer.

Other announced bidders for Yukos' assets include little-known Russian companies that media have reported could be proxy bidders for larger companies: TEK Invest, FinansTekhnoKomplekt and Energogaz.

Rumours have swirled around the fate of the assets since Yukos was declared bankrupt over the summer. Moscow-based daily Kommersant reported Wednesday that Gazprom was planning to buy Yukos assets together with Italy's Eni.

Gazprom's 2007 budget is said to have allotted money for the purchase of Yukos assets.

Yukos' largest oil field, Yuganskneftegaz, was bought by Rosneft though a proxy company in December 2004.

At that time, many US and European companies opted not to bid for the asset, fearing that the sale's legality could be challenged in their home countries.