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Rosneft to integrate Yukos production assets in July -CEO-1

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PARIS, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - Rosneft [RTS: ROSN] will integrate in July former Yukos production assets acquired at the bankrupt oil company's liquidation auctions, and sell its non-core assets, the company's CEO said Wednesday.

"The new assets will be integrated in a single payment plan and funding plan in July," Sergei Bogdanchikov told the tenth CIS oil and gas forum. He said his company would not issue new shares to consolidate former Yukos assets.

In the summer of 2006, state-controlled Rosneft raised over $10.6 billion through an initial public offering (IPO), the biggest in Russia's corporate history and the world's fifth largest. Some 15% in Rosneft stock was sold.

Bogdanchikov said no foreign companies which bought Rosneft's shares at the IPO, which included oil major BP and China's CNPC, had yet made official requests to increase their stakes. However, Rosneft has increased its reserves and output ever since, which he said has had a positive impact on foreign-owned shares.

Yukos, formerly Russia's leading oil producer, was declared bankrupt on August 1, 2006 following three years of litigation with authorities over the tax arrears.

The Rosneft CEO said former Yukos assets purchased by Rosneft would put the company among the world's top three oil companies. Negotiations are now underway for Rosneft's planned acquisition of Yukos oil marketing and sales assets from Unitex, he said.

Unitex bought Yukos marketing assets at 12.5 billion rubles ($482.6 million) with a starting price of 7.7 billion rubles ($297.3 million) at an auction on May 10. The lot included the bankrupt oil company's retail and wholesale petrochemical sellers, petroleum depots and filling stations.

Bogdanchikov denied any connection between his company and Prana, a previously unknown company which bought Yukos assets including its headquarters at a liquidation auction.

"The structure is categorically not ours," Sergei Bogdanchikov said. "We have never heard of it."

He also said Rosneft was considering buying Yukos assets in the Krasnodar Territory, in southern Russia. The Russian Federal Antitrust Service had earlier refused to sell them to Promregion Holding, a Rosneft-linked company that won the auction on May, over lack of transparency.

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