MOSCOW (AFP) - The Russian oil giant Yukos oil giant has asked US investment bank JPMorgan Chase to issue a second valuation of its top producer ahead of its expected auction by the state, the Interfax news agency quoted unnamed sources as saying.
The report came days after the Russian justice ministry decided to value Yuganskneftegaz at 10.4 billion dollars, the low-end estimate provided in a separate assessment done by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW).
Yukos and the markets had expected a valuation closer to 20 billion dollars, and the unit itself to be actually worth some 30 billion dollars.
The low price figure led to market speculation that the key oil asset may go to a government-linked company for a bargain-basement price, introducing a poisonous air to the Russian invesmtnet climate.
Yukos officials were not immediately available to confirm the report of the possible involvement of JPMorgan Chase.
But the source cited by Interfax said the JPMorgan Chase valuation was already under way and could be finished within a month.
The report`s implications were not clear for the future sale of Yuganskneftegaz, since it was the justice ministry that picked DrKW to assess the unit`s value in the first place. That valuation was advisory rather than binding in nature.
Interfax further quoted a Yukos source as saying the US investment bank would receive information on Yuganskneftegaz that had not been accessible to DrKW, but did not go into further details.
Interfax earlier reported that the auction, to cover back taxes for the country`s largest oil producer that will in effect split up the company, will take place November 22.
It said potential bidders would have to deposit 800 million dollars (640 million euros) to take part in the open auction and that "the start price of the auction has been set at the amount of the debt."
Interfax did not specify which debt the conditions referred to. Yukos owes the state some 7.5 billion dollars in back taxes for 2000-2001, of which it has claimed to have covered about three billion dollars.
However, Alexander Buksman, head of the justice ministry`s main directorate, told Interfax last week that Yukos currently owed 3.73 billion dollars in back taxes.
The auction will be for 43 Yuganskneftegaz common shares, which account for 76.8 percent of the company`s stock.
Separately Monday, in a largely expected decision, a Moscow arbitration court turned down a Yuganskneftegaz appeal to win back access to its bank accounts -- frozen since the summer -- so that it could pay back the taxes.
The justice ministry decided to break up Yukos last week in a climax to a year-long battle with the company.
Yukos supporters insist similar charges could have been made against any number of other tycoons who made their fortunes in the 1990s but that the case against Yukos is political because its managers openly opposed the administration of President Vladimir Putin. Putin has denied politics were at play.
No Russian company has so far publicly said it was willing to bid on the Yukos asset, with Gazprom chief executive dismissing an earlier Interfax reported suggesting that an affiliate of the natural gas monopoly might.