MOSCOW, May 3 (RIA Novosti) - Two companies will bid for Yukos' Eastern Siberia assets, which go under the hammer later Thursday, as part of the oil giant's bankruptcy proceedings, the commission organizing the auction said.
Russian state-owned Rosneft's Neft Aktiv subsidiary and Unitex, affiliated with private gas company Novatek, will vie for the prize assets at the auction, set for 4 p.m. Moscow time (12:00 p.m. GMT), the commission said.
The initial lot price that includes Yukos' largest oil producing and refining companies in Russia's east is 166.34 billion rubles (about $6.46 billion), with the deposit sum of 33.27 billion rubles (about $1.29 billion) and a bid increment of 260 million rubles (about $10 million).
Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company, was declared bankrupt August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over the company's tax arrears.
Yukos, whose founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is serving an eight-year prison term in Siberia after being convicted of fraud in May 2005, faces a total of more than 700 billion rubles (about $26.9 billion) in claims from creditors.
