MOSCOW, August 15 (RIA Novosti) - State-controlled crude producer Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] acquired the debt portfolio of bankrupt oil company Yukos [RTS: YUKO] at a liquidation auction Wednesday for 11.55 billion rubles ($453 million).
Rosneft won the auction at one bid increment above the starting price.
The only other bidder at the last auction for the Yukos assets was a little-known company, Benefit, which previously made unsuccessful bids at Yukos sell-offs.
Rosneft, Yukos's second-largest creditor, has won all the main Yukos liquidation auctions. Through buying up Yukos's key production and refining assets, Rosneft has become one of Russia's leading oil producers.
Yukos was declared bankrupt August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over arrears. Its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Siberia for fraud and tax evasion.
The liquidation of Yukos is widely seen as part of the Kremlin's drive to regain control over the country's oil and gas sector.
