MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's wounded giant Yukos appeared to have won a three-month stay of execution after a top Russian official said its main production unit was unlikely to have its oil license revoked.
"In my view, we cannot recall (the license) since this would be illegal without issuing a three-month warning first," natural resources ministry chief Yury Trutnev was quoted as saying ahead of the licensing decision.
"But in my view, an injunction will be issued -- violations have been made," he added.
Interfax later quoted an unnamed source as saying that 21 licenses had been extended for three months and another five put under further review.
Analysts did not see the decision as a victory for a Yukos but rather a delay of the inevitable dismemberment of a company that was once a Western investment darling and still pumps two percent of the world's oil -- about the same as Iraq.
Yukos's assets are still frozen and it is unlikely to reemerge whole after being saddled with a multi-billion-dollar tax debt that it is unable to pay off without access to its bank accounts.
The tax charges emerged only after company founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- now in jail -- expressed open political opposition to President Vladimir Putin last year.
The state instead has now ruled that Yukos must sell off assets to cover its debts and the first on the chopping block is Yuganskneftegas.
The Siberian crown jewel accounts for 62 percent of Yukos' production and its ownership would make any Russian company into a global power.
But the sheer size of Yugansk puts it out of reach for any one Russian company and Yukos chiefs are now accusing the state of playing behind the scenes games by trying to devalue the stake ahead of its potential sale.
Yugansk was unexpectedly saddled with a new one billion dollar tax bill earlier this week.
ITAR-TASS reported that Yukos board chairman Viktor Gerashchenko told a Russia-US investment forum in Washington this week that Moscow was undervaluing his company's assets to keep Western firms out of the Russian market.
Gerashchenko confirmed Russian reports that Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein had valued Yugansk at between 15.7 and 17.4 billion dollars -- a fair value according to analysts' estimates.
"But there is not a single Russian company that could afford to buy Yuganskneftegas for even 10 billion dollars, and the government does not want to give it up to a Western company," Gerashchenko was quoted as saying in Washington.
The 15 to 17 billion dollar figure for Yugansk has circulated in the Russian press all week and Yukos stock has seen a 27 percent gain since Monday as a result. The share had lost more than three fourths of its value since the start of the year.
The justice ministry claims it has not yet received the official valuation figure.
"According to our information, they (Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein) have sent their valuation figure to the justice ministry," Gerashchenko was quoted as saying. "But the justice ministry claims it received no such thing.
"They did not expect the price to be so high and are doing everything they can to lower it," he said.
The government has yet to reveal its own assessment of Yukos's worth.
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.