My house is on the edge

Russneft disowned Yukos

Rumors that Mikhail Gutseriev is being forced to sell RussNeft, and that his problems with the authorities are caused by the “unauthorized” purchase of YUKOS assets (see Vremya Novostey, July 24), forced the head of the company to take extreme measures. Late on Tuesday evening, the Russneft press service issued an official statement that the company had never purchased any assets of YUKOS. We are talking about three transactions concluded between the subsidiaries of YUKOS and certain Cypriot offshore companies for the sale of six enterprises in the Tomsk region, 34% of shares in the Geoilbent company and 50% of shares in a joint venture with the Hungarian MOL, which owns a license for the Zapadno-Malobalykskoye field in KHMAO. As for the failed deal to purchase a 49% stake in the Slovak pipeline company Transpetrol from YUKOS, RussNeft, according to the statement, abandoned it at the request of the former deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom, Alexander Ryazanov. However, several sources familiar with the details of the transactions once again confirmed to Vremya Novostey that it was Mikhail Gutseriev’s company that was behind all these transactions.

“All transactions were concluded in 2005, when YUKOS assets were arrested, which means there were no legal grounds for their sale and purchase. But RussNeft, knowing this, took a risk, recalls one of Vremya Novostey’s interlocutors. “For which, apparently, she paid.” As you know, Mikhail Gutseriev is now in a serious conflict with the Russian authorities. At the end of last year, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case against the heads of two subsidiaries of the companies for exceeding the oil production limit. At the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs joined the process, filing a case against RussNeft for non-payment of taxes on a particularly large scale. In May, Mr. Gutseriev was formally charged and ordered not to leave. And in June, the Federal Tax Service sued the company, accusing it of non-payment of almost 15 billion rubles. taxes, and fraud with the sale of shares. As a result, a seizure was placed on Russneft shares, which has not yet been lifted. According to unofficial data, pressure from the authorities is forcing Mr. Gutseriev to sell his business, and various sources name the buyer as “Basic Element”. However, the head of Russneft himself, like Basel, denies this for now.

All of the above transactions have a rather complicated history. Thus, in 2003, the management of Tomskneftegazgeologiya, 38% owned by YUKOS, withdrew six production assets from the company (Sobolinoye, Stolbovoye, Fedyushkinskoye, Sredne-Vasyuganskoye, Poselkovoe and Duklinskoye), which were later sold to RussNeft. Even then, the Tomsk prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against the company's leaders for concealing property, but this did not stop Russneft. Now the company says that Tomskneftegazgeologiya was acquired by Russneft from the main shareholder of the enterprise - State Duma deputy Maxim Korobov. “At the same time, Russneft has never been interested and today is not interested in the question of who previously owned the enterprise,” the company’s press release says.

There is no less mystery in the story of the sale of Geoilbent. Until 2005, the shareholders of this company were NOVATEK (66%) and the Cypriot subsidiary of YUKOS - YUKOS Operational Holding Ltd. In the spring of 2005, when NOVATEK was about to sell its share to LUKOIL, it turned out that the second shareholder was not YUKOS, but a certain Cypriot offshore Broadwood Trading & Investments Ltd. Moreover, this company declared its rights to the NOVATEK stake. And then Russneft almost did not hide its connection with this offshore. Only in the winter of this year, Mr. Gutseriev’s company ceded this asset to LUKOIL. Yesterday, a LUKOIL representative refused to name who was behind Broadwood Trading & Investments: “We did not disclose this information when announcing the deal, and we will not name it now.” Russneft itself explained in its press release that Geoilbent “was never part of Russneft, Russneft never conducted any negotiations on its purchase.”

YUKOS transferred its 50 percent stake in the West Malabalykskoye field to three unknown funds in the middle of last year, and two months later they were officially bought out by RussNeft itself. True, she now claims that she did not know who was behind the sellers.

All these operations did not affect the interests of Russian state-owned companies, so if they wanted, officials could turn a blind eye to them, if not for Russneft’s attempt to buy out 49% of the shares of Transpetrol from the Dutch subsidiary of YUKOS (owns the Slovak section of the Druzhba oil pipeline, the remaining 51% belongs to Slovakia ). This deal already affected national interests. Mr. Gutseriev was hunting for this asset back in 2002, but only in February 2006, that is, two months before the introduction of the procedure for external monitoring of YUKOS, he managed to agree with the management of Yukos Finance on the sale of the asset for $104 million. Then The Ministry of Economic Development announced that it strongly supports RussNeft in this endeavor. The agreement was signed and submitted to the Antimonopoly Committee of Slovakia, which approved the deal. But in April, the Slovak government, for unspecified reasons, refused RussNeft and seized the shares. Then the company refused to comment on the situation. Now Russneft has announced that it itself refused the deal at the request of Mr. Ryazanov. Russneft negotiated with the government of Slovakia to acquire a stake in Transpetrol with the written permission of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, then, at the request of the former president of Gazprom Neft Alexander Ryazanov, Russneft abandoned the negotiations in favor of Gazprom Neft, the report says. The Gazprom Neft press service declined to comment yesterday. But it is quite possible that in this case Russneft was right. After all, immediately after the deal failed, Gazprom itself spoke about its interest in Transpetrol. “It is possible that corresponding pressure was also exerted on the Slovak government,” notes one of the newspaper’s interlocutors.

It is now clear that the statements are unlikely to help Mr. Gutseriev save the company. It seems that the issue of its cost is now being decided.

Anna GORSHKOVA