by Dmitry Zaks
MOSCOW, Aug 9 (AFP) - The Russian justice ministry said Monday its bailiffs refroze the shares in the most vital subsidiary of oil giant Yukos in a move that threatens to see global prices return to record highs.
Yuganskneftegaz (Yugansk) accounts for some 60 percent of the oil produced by Yukos and its future is critical for the survival of Russia`s largest oil company.
The justice ministry statement faxed to AFP said the decision was reached by a Moscow arbitration court on Friday because Yukos was falling behind on its outstanding tax payments.
The Western darling Yukos faces a 3.4 billion dollar tax bill for 2000 and the sum can grow to up to 10 billion dollars through 2003.
Yukos`s market capitalization is now lower than that sum and the company is seen as one of the best managed and most transparent in Russia, but whose jailed executives stood in open opposition to the Kremlin
It now again looks set to fall into the hands of state-linked oil rivals.
Reports have said that Yukos has paid up to 900 million dollars of its 2000 tax bill and the company`s executives have relied in large part on Yugansk to cover the rest.
The justice ministry statement said it was gaining back the shares but not the property of Yugansk. It was not immediately clear if the subsidiary would be allowed to maintain production.
The statement was issued after the Russian market closed. Yukos shares had soared nearly 17 percent Monday on news that the Moscow arbitration court had unfrozen the Yukos shares in Yugansk on Friday evening.
The confusion left analysts scratching their heads. But most predicted a sad day for Yukos shares Tuesday and a potential leap in global oil prices to new record highs.
Yukos accounts for one-fifth of the oil pumped in the world`s second-largest producer Russia.
The twists and turns of the affair has left investors in Russia confounded and scrambling to figure out why President Vladimir Putin -- who at one point vowed not to bankrupt the company -- has not said a word since.
Some analysts said this game of back and forth unveiled the fissures within Putin`s administration that many had suspected already existed.
Yukos` founder and now jailed former executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky had come out in open political opposition to Putin.
Khodorkovsky tried -- but failed -- to stack parliament with his allies while fighting the Kremlin`s policies on oil taxes and refusal to de-monopolize the pipeline network.
But even the top bankers admitted that few really knew what was going on.
"The government is far from unified and singular in its thinking about Yukos. Perhaps, on some rarefied level, this is a matter of personal score settling or the pursuit of a vendetta," Alfa Bank said in a note.
"Perhaps it is partially a reaction against those whose wealth becomes too `political`. Perhaps it is about tax evasion and avoidance.
"Perhaps it is about the resentment of those `passed over` in the original privatization process," the bank said, in reference to former KGB officers who saw a few bankers make billions in privatization deals, and who have since joined Putin`s team.
"Or perhaps it is a bit of everything, with a `cacophony` of interests and groups competing within a largely vacuous space for control over the process," the note said.
Yukos officials were not available for comment. They have declined to speak to reporters in recent days.