by Dmitry Zaks
MOSCOW, Aug 12 (AFP) - Russian tycoons hovered Thursday over the dismembered oil giant Yukos while its jailed founders tried to pull the company back together in a dramatic fight for assets in the world's number two exporter Russia.
Yukos, which accounts for one in every five barrels of oil pumped in Russia, announced Wednesday it was in default yet again.
The international credit ratings agency Standard and Poor's said Yukos's future remained highly vulnerable but that it was keeping the company's rating at CC -- just two notches above default -- because creditors had still not demanded immediate payment.
Intrigues surrounding Yukos and implications they have for the global oil market and Russian politics are churning forward at the slow but steady pace of a Dostoyevsky novel towards a tragic crescendo.
Yukos was declared in default last week by Bank Menatep -- founded by the principal Yukos shareholders who control just over 40 percent of the shares, now frozen -- that now wants to recover its 1.6-billion-dollar (1.3-billion-euro) loan to the company.
The news infuriated Western investors because Yukos announced the default news after the benchmark RTS stock exchange had closed on Wednesday and offered no explanation for why it waited nearly a week to make it public.
But most agreed Thursday that Menatep and its founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now sitting in a Moscow jail and watching Yukos disintegrate, were simply trying to be quick off the mark as their company is sold off.
The state has first rights to Yukos property, claiming a massive tax bill of 3.4 billion dollars that could balloon to nearly 10 billion in coming months.
But Menatep's decision to call in the debt early would put the company's original founders -- all now either in jail or self-imposed exile -- second in line.
This theoretically should put them ahead of their major energy rival. These would include those now chaired by a security service agent who has a powerful post in President Vladimir Putin's administration.
"Yukos's principal shareholder group could use this loan as a way to force the company into bankruptcy, so as to have some say, as a significant creditor, over how Yukos's assets might be sold off in bankruptcy proceedings," the Renaissance Capital investment bank agreed.
But other investors said the struggle between Yukos and the Kremlin could no longer be viewed in political terms as it had been when Khodorkovsky stood in open opposition to Putin's oil tax policies and refusal to break up the Transeft oil monopoly.
They wondered why information was being suppressed by both Yukos and the government and released only in seemingly opportune times while the markets rattled back and forth.
"One part of the news that will undoubtedly infuriate investors is the fact that Yukos received this notice last Friday but delayed its release until the markets' close" Wednesday, said Chris Weafer of Alfa Bank.
"Whatever the motives of the bailiffs, the feeling is that investor sentiment is being used by Yukos in its PR battle with the government."
Meanwhile Yukos shares -- now worth less than a quarter of what they were at the time of Khodorkovsky's arrest in October -- had a rare good day on the markets, gaining 5.56 percent to close at 3.8 dollars on the benchmark RTS exchange.
The gain was driven by news that the core Yukos producer subsidiary Yugansk, which has been seized by the state, would be valued by Dresdner Bank before being sold off by the state.
Investors had feared that the company would be valued by Russian authorities, meaning Yugansk could be sold off on the cheap to a state-linked company, leaving Yukos without enough cash to pay off its tax bills.
Yukos itself values Yugansk, which accounts for 60 percent of its production, at up to 30 billion dollars. The justice ministry had cited a figure of 1.7 billion dollars.