MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's justice ministry said the Yukos oil giant has paid three-fourths of its 2000 tax bill but still had billions more to pay in outstanding debts that analysts said would require sales of its assets.
News reports quoted the justice ministry saying that Yukos has paid 75 billion rubles (2.57 billion dollars) of its 99 billion ruble tax bill outstanding for 2000.
Total tax claims against Yukos including 2001 -- which include a contested court martial fee -- raise that bill to nearly 5.5 billion dollars.
Authorities have threatened to look further into Yukos's accounts for 2002 and 2003 in a campaign that Russia's largest oil producer, which now stands on the verge of bankruptcy and dismemberment by the state, claims is being driven by politics.
The outstanding bill "clearly allows the court marshalls to sell Yukos assets to settle the tax liabilities," the United Financial Group said in a research note.
Yukos shares and bank accounts remain frozen, meaning that it can only pay bills through its existing exports, which are slowly drying up. It has already cut its link to China because it is unable to pay the rail transport fees.
One of the first Yukos assets likely to go up for sale is its main subsidiary Yuganskneftegansk, which accounts for some 62 percent of the company's production.
Russian news reports suggest Yugansk has been valued by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein at between 15 and 17 billion dollars -- a fair value according to analysts' valuations -- although the justice ministry repeated Wednesday that it has so far received no offocial valuation report.
Yugansk's value could plummet should the natural resource ministry decide to pull its production license, a move that would make the field all but worthless and available at a bargain-basement price for any one of Yukos's rivals.
With the realignment of Russia's lucrative energy sector carrying heavy political implications, none of the country's oil majors has yet expressed direct interest in Yukos assets.