Under siege Russian oil company Yukos has been handed yet another blow from Russian authorities, as a Moscow court has ordered the majority of the company's assets to be frozen in response to a lawsuit issued by Rosneft.
The court decision comes as the result of a case brought by Russian state-owned Rosneft, which is suing Yukos for $5.9 billion in damages regarding alleged underpayment for oil from Yuganskneftegaz, the former Yukos subsidiary that is now owned by Rosneft.
The ruling by the Moscow Arbitration Court bars Yukos from disposing of shares in its major remaining subsidiaries, which include its top two oil production units, Tomskneft and Samaraneftegaz.
Additionally, the court order has frozen the shares in Eastern Oil Company, the Syzran oil refinery, the Eastern Oil Company’s Achinsk refinery, the East Siberia Oil and Gas Company, the Angarsk Petrochemicals Company, Tambovnefteprodukt, and Irkutsknefteprodukt, according to the BBC. Certain assets were not frozen.
This latest development in the fall of Yukos is described by some industry onlookers as just the next step in the Russian government’s systematic and deliberate dismantling of the former oil titan. Having already lost it biggest asset, Yuganskneftegaz, which is now being used against it, Yukos may be stripped of a number of its next most valuable properties as a result of the current action.