The bankrupt Yukos Oil Company [RTS: YUKO] said Monday its debt to creditors has reached nearly $27 billion.

The company, once Russia's largest crude producer, was declared bankrupt August 1 after three years of litigation with authorities over tax arrears. A consortium of appraisers has estimated Yukos assets at $22 billion.

As of January 31, 2007, Yukos faced 142 suits from 68 companies and organizations. The largest of them were by the tax authorities, which are demanding $16.3 billion in back taxes, the state-run oil company Rosneft with a $10 billion claim, and former Yukos subsidiaries Tomskneft ($465 million), Samaraneftegaz ($70 million) and the Siberian Service Company ($8.7 million).

The founder of Yukos and once Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and his business partner Platon Lebedev, both serving eight-year sentences for fraud and tax evasion, faced new money laundering charges February 5.

The Prosecutor General's Office is accusing Khodorkovsky and Lebedev of stealing $32-billion-worth of oil from Samaraneftegaz, Yuganskneftegaz and Tomskneft in 1998-2003, which the two businessmen allegedly documented as "oil-well liquid."

Prosecutors said Khodorkovsky and Lebedev later resold the oil to end customers for triple the price via bogus firms registered both in and outside Russia. The scheme helped legalize a total of 450 billion rubles ($17 billion) and $7.5 billion, prosecutors said. // RIA "Novosti"


Publication date: 12 February 2007   

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