Shares in the embattled Russian oil giant Yukos climbed 13 per cent yesterday as fears receded that the firm's main production unit would be sold for a knockdown price by bailiffs who are trying to seize at least $3.4 billion (€2.75 billion) in unpaid taxes.
Russia's justice ministry surprised analysts by announcing that Germany's Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein would value the Yukos subsidiary responsible for pumping some 60 per cent of the company's 1.7 million barrels per day output.
The surprise move came after Ms Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, called Kremlin chief of staff Mr Dmitry Medvedev to discuss a legal onslaught that has crippled Russia's biggest oil firm and landed its founder, Mr Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in jail on charges of tax evasion and fraud.
The United States and the European Union have asked why only Yukos and Kremlin critic Mr Khodorkovsky are being prosecuted for things that countless other businessmen and their firms indulged in during a decade of chaotic and often corrupt post-Soviet capitalism.
The attack on Yukos, which fears a potential total tax bill of $10 billion, has also prompted Beijing to seek clarification of how Russia is dealing with a company that supplies much of northern China's energy demand.
Bailiffs have barred Yukos from selling assets to pay its tax arrears and funnelled some $900 million from its accounts, prompting company executives to warn of impending bankruptcy and a cessation of oil exports.
Uncertainty over Yukos, which pumps as much oil as Libya, has contributed to spiralling world oil prices and focused attention on what most observers see as a Kremlin-orchestrated campaign to chasten Mr Khodorkovsky and bring a prized piece of the Russian oil industry back under state control.
Yukos had feared that a state-run fire sale of its main unit, Yuganskneftegaz, would result in its purchase by a Kremlin-friendly company for as little as $1.75 billion. It was valued by international experts at $30.4 billion at the end of last year.
"This is the first indication that we have had that the court will not allow an arbitrary and presumably ridiculously low valuation to be applied to Yukos assets by the bailiff's service," Mr Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank, said in response to the appointment of the Dresdner bank subsidiary as evaluator.
Other observers said political concerns had surely prompted the approach to Dresdner, amid fears that Russia's reputation was being badly tarnished by the perceived use of "selective justice".
