Buyer of Yukos’ Core Unit Is Sold

A state-owned oil company announced Wednesday that it had purchased the previously unknown firm that made the winning bid at a recent auction for beleaguered Yukos Oil Co.’s core production facility.

The announcement that Rosneft, whose board chairman is a close aide to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, has bought 100% of the shares in Baikalfinansgroup in effect nationalizes 11% of Russia’s crude oil production.

Baikalfinansgroup won a controlling 76.8% stake in Yukos subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz at the auction Sunday, in effect gutting the dominant Russian oil firm. Its offer of $9.3 billion was about half of the $18 billion that foreign auditors said the subsidiary was worth.

“Rosneft bought 100% of shares in Baikalfinansgroup from its former owners,” a company spokesperson told the Interfax news agency.

Acquisition of a controlling stake in Yuganskneftegaz “was made in the framework of implementing Rosneft development plans, which provide for transforming the company into a balanced national energy corporation by developing the company’s production facilities in all regions of its activity, namely Siberia, the Far East, northern and southern European Russia,” the official said.

Rosneft spokesman Alexander Stepanenko, reached early today, confirmed the Interfax report but did not provide additional information. Observers predicted it would be at least several weeks before Rosneft would be able to take control of Yuganskneftegaz, which is based in western Siberia and produces more than 60% of Yukos’ output.

Rosneft and Russia’s giant natural gas company, Gazprom, which is not majority state-owned but is in effect state-controlled, have been planning to merge. Gazprom was originally expected to be the winner of Sunday’s auction. It appeared that a merger between Gazprom and Rosneft was still possible, although recent events concerning Yukos might cause a delay.

It is also possible that rather than create a single state-controlled natural gas and oil energy giant, the Kremlin’s plan now is to make Rosneft the core of a huge state-run oil firm and leave Gazprom to handle natural gas, said Nelli Sharushkina, head of the Moscow office of New York-based Energy Intelligence, a company that produces and publishes information on international energy issues.

Critics charge that Russian authorities want to get control of Yukos’ assets and punish its former chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Authorities contend that Yukos owes $27 billion in back taxes. Khodorkovsky, a political foe of Putin, is on trial for alleged tax fraud and is being held in jail. Having Baikalfinansgroup win the bidding might have been a way to take control of the Yukos assets without exposing Gazprom to risk, analysts said.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston last week issued a 10-day injunction barring Gazprom from participating in the auction of Yuganskneftegaz as part of Yukos’ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Yukos says it will pursue damages against anyone associated with the auction.

Russian authorities reject the Houston court’s jurisdiction.

Putin said Tuesday that all of the purchaser’s shareholders, whose names had not been made public, were private individuals “doing business in the energy sphere.”

The chairman of Rosneft’s board is Igor Sechin, who also is deputy chief of the Putin administration. He is considered one of the Russian president’s closest aides and advisors.

Stanislav Belkovsky, head of the National Strategy Council, a Moscow think tank, was quoted Wednesday in the Vedomosti newspaper as saying that Baikalfinansgroup might be a cover for a group of state officials and businesspeople led by Sechin.

Belkovsky said: “The Yuganskneftegaz auction ... shows that recovering back taxes was not the state’s goal at all.”