Yukos gains double lifeline with help of BP

Yukos, the embattled Russian oil group struggling to pay a crippling $3.4bn (£1.9bn) tax bill, last night secured a double lifeline in moves that could help ease the global crisis over oil prices.

The Russian justice ministry released frozen accounts to enable Yukos to allow its daily operations to continue after the oil group had warned it would have to cease production as early as next week.

The group, which has only until the end of this month to pay its tax debts, also won backing from BP to raise up to $360m through the sale of its 56% stake in Siberian gas firm Rospan to its joint venture partner, TNK-BP, in a deal that could be signed within weeks.

TNK-BP, which operates Rospan and has a 44% stake, confirmed that talks with Yukos to buy out its stake had begun - subject to shareholder approval and permission from the Russian authorities. But Yukos said negotiations were being blocked by the same justice ministry that unfroze some of its accounts.

Bruce Misamore, Yukos's chief executive, said: "We welcome the justice ministry's decision [to release accounts] which lets us continue financing our ongoing business."

But according to the Interfax news agency, Yukos lawyer Dmitry Gololobov said that the ministry had so far not answered a letter asking for permission to sell its stake in Rospan. The company, which produces 3.6bn cubic metres of gas a year, is held by an offshore subsidiary of Yukos named Hedgerow and, TNK-BP said, any transactions it made were not in breach of Russian law and were unaffected by the freeze on the Yukos assets.

It is the first effort by the Russian group to sell assets to pay off its tax debts, but a company spokesman warned that Yukos would still be hard-pressed to meet its payment deadline. Of its $1.7bn monthly income, he said, $1.5bn is required for expenses, including taxes and transport. That would leave just $200m for payment of back tax, and the company has said it can raise only $1.8bn by August 31.

Yukos would get $357m from the sale of its stake in Rospan, which has reserves of 950bn cubic metres of gas plus another 100m tonnes of gas condensate; it is based in Urengoy, eastern Siberia.

Through a subsidiary, Rizben Enterprises, TNK-BP can unilaterally decide to buy shares from Hedgerow upon written notification.

Apart from yesterday's developments and a rare piece of good news this week, when a court ruled in Yukos's favour against the collection of a $230m bailiff fee, the oil company's fortunes have continued to deteriorate.

Along with the $3.4bn tax debt from 2000 it is facing another bill for $3.3bn from 2001, and government officials have warned they are likely to collect back taxes from subsequent years as well.

The federal arbitration court yesterday rejected Yukos's attempt to stop the seizure of the $3.4bn in tax debt. Court bailiffs have said they will seize and sell Yukos's core operation, Yuganskneftegaz, if the tax debt is not paid in full by the end of August.

Another appeal is scheduled to be heard on September 6 - after the collection deadline has passed.

Yukos's former chief executive and controlling shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and fellow shareholder, Platon Lebedev, are on trial in Moscow on charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion.