MOSCOW (AFP) - Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) said it had recommended that a core asset of the oil giant Yukos be sold at between 14.7 and 17.3 billion dollars, higher than a state valuation released this week.
The Russian justice ministry Wednesday said Yuganskneftegaz, which pumps 62 percent of Yukos's oil, was worth only 10.4 billion dollars according to the DrKW valuation.
Yuganskneftegaz is due to be sold through a tender or auction to pay Yukos's back taxes by the end of the year.
"We are being open with disclosing the whole thing, with the blessing of our client," the Russian justice ministry, a bank official, who asked not to be named, said by telephone from London.
"We were never going to put this out without that agreement."
A justice ministry official was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that it would make a formal response to DrKW's decision to go public with its valuation later Thursday.
The bank ran a separate "discount cash flow analysis" in its valuation that relied on 2003 figures and two other more optimistic studies that predicted slight growth in production that was already achieved by the unit in 2004.
The low-range valuation saw Yuganskneftegaz worth 14.3 billion dollars -- or 10.4 billion dollars after it paid off its tax and other liabilities.
But DrKW stressed that the bank "believes (this value) to be an overly conservative case to use in the context of Yuganskneftegaz as a stand-alone company."
Instead, it recommended an equity range of Yukos's crown jewel of between 14.7 and 17.3 billion dollars -- a figure that had been reported earlier in the Russian press and which most industry analysts found to be fair.
The DrKW letter was dated October 6 although the Russian justice ministry had denied receiving the valuation report until Wednesday, or one week later.