Vedomosti said a consortium of five Russian appraisers led by the Roseco company had passed on the results of their calculations to Yukos's former temporary manager and current bankruptcy receiver, Eduard Rebgun.
A source close to the evaluation said the auditors' report, based on figures effective October 1, 2006, would have to be examined by the Yukos creditors' committee, which includes Russia's third-largest oil company, Rosneft, and the federal tax authorities.
Yukos's most valuable assets - shares of Gazprom Neft [RTS: SIBN], formerly Sibneft ($4.2 billion for 20%) and state-controlled Rosneft ($7.23 billion for 9.44%) - were estimated based on their market performance, and would be sold at a discount rate of 5%, Vedomosti said.
Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, which has declared plans to buy out its subsidiary Gazprom Neft, said it had expected a better discount, a company manager told Vedomosti. The Russian gas monopoly had allocated $3.75 billion for the acquisition, while Gazprom Neft's price will be $3.98 billion after the discount.
Two other key Yukos production assets - Samaraneftegaz and Tomskneft - have been valued surprisingly high: $8.3 billion and $9.6 billion respectively, the paper said. Yukos's core unit, Yuganskneftegaz, whose production was several times more substantial, was sold for $9.35 billion in December 2004 and made Rosneft into a leading Russian crude producer.
Investors have estimated Samaraneftegaz to be worth $2-4 billion and Tomskneft $6.5 billion, Alfa-Bank analyst Dmitry Lukashov told Vedomosti.
Last summer, Yukos's former temporary manager and creditors said the oil company, whose debts at the time the court had put at $18.56 billion, was worth a mere $16.9 billion. This discrepancy justified their decision to auction off Yukos's assets. Roseco's Director General Yevgeny Neiman declined to reveal the method applied in the current assessment process, the daily said.
Vedomosti said the starting price to be declared before the auctions could well be lower. The daily quoted a source familiar with the auditors' report as saying that the discount could range between 5% and 30%, including 20-25% for the production and refining units of Yukos, whose total debts presently stand at $26.6 billion, according to a court ruling.
