The head of the department of court bailiffs, Andrei Belyakov, announced that the Justice Ministry still had plans to sell Yuganskneftegaz. "I cannot tell you the exact date, it may be in December, it may be in January," Mr. Belyakov told Vedomosti. He immediately added, though, that the money received from the sale of Yuganskneftegaz might not be enough to pay off the Yukos tax debt, because payments for 2001-2002 were still pending. "If we have additional claims, we will proceed in a similar manner," the official stated. "We will continue selling Yukos assets, primarily its other production units."
Apart from Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos has two other large production units - Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz. According to estimates provided by Rye, Man & Gor Securities, the minimum market value of these companies, which produce more than 30 million metric tons of oil per year, is $6.5 billion. The next on the list of assets to be sold to clear the Yukos tax debt might be four oil refineries valued at $3 billion overall. Yukos distribution units, its oil storage facility and oil tanks could bring an additional $500-600. And the last valuable Yukos asset is a majority stake in a Lithuanian oil concern, Mazeikiu Nafta, which includes an oil refinery and a bulk-oil terminal in Buting. The asset has been valued at about $850 million.
Some analysts mention that a large-scale sale of Yukos assets might reduce the oil company's capitalization to nothing. Both Yukos officials and independent analysts have not been able to evaluate the level of additional tax claims against the company for 2003-2004, saying that tax authorities have been very vague with their interpretations of current tax legislation. Kakha Kiknavelidze, an analyst with Troika-Dialog, believes that the sales value of Yuganskneftegaz might be around $10 billion at most, which could barely cover the existing Yukos tax debts.
