A meeting of creditors of Yukos Oil Company voted Tuesday to recognize the company bankrupt and apply to a court with this recommendation. In view of this decision, Yukos said it was freezing any transactions with its assets until August 1, when the court started to discuss the company's bankruptcy case.
"Joint work on the acquisition of a 49% stake in Transpetrol is continuing," said Konstantin Chuichenko, the head of the Gazprom legal department. "Considering that this asset is under the ownership of Yukos overseas subsidiaries, the possibility of concluding this deal, given that the court decides on the company's liquidation August 1, cannot be ruled out even after this decision."
Chuichenko said a Yukos decision to sell its 49% stake in Transpetrol to Gazprom for $105 million came after negotiations between the two parties.
However, the Gazprom executive said he regretted Yukos's refusal to hold negotiations on selling about 20% of shares of Gazprom Neft to the energy giant.
Gazprom offered to buy the stake in the former Sibneft last week. The energy giant bought a 72.66% stake in the former Sibneft from Roman Abramovich's investment vehicle, Millhouse Capital, last September for $13.1 billion. Combined with 3.016% of the company's shares the energy giant had earlier purchased from Gazprombank, it currently owns 75.679% of Gazprom Neft.
Chuichenko said the sum of over $2.5 billion offered by the energy giant for Yukos' stake in Gazprom Neft was fair. Yukos earlier estimated this stake at $4.2 billion.
