A Russian bank has got a US$6 billion loan from Chinese banks to
finance state oil firm Rosneft's purchase of a core production unit
of oil giant Yukos, a top Russian energy official said in Moscow
Tuesday.?
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Without naming the Chinese banks, Russian Finance Minister Alexei
Kudrin said Russia's Vnesheconom bank borrowed the loan to credit
Rosneft for the purchase of Yukos' major subsidiary
Yuganskneftegaz, which was put up for auction in December to raise
money for the payment of Yukos' multi-billion-dollar back tax
bill.
Rosneft had paid US$9.4 billion for the acquisition of
Yuganskneftegaz after it purchased Baikalfinans group, the
previously unknown company that unexpectedly won the bid for
Yuganskneftegaz, which produces 60 percent of Yukos' output.
The sale has been considered as a key stage of the
year-and-a-half judicial campaign against Yukos. Some critics see
the legal process as a Kremlin-inspired political move to dwarf
former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky who has allegedly funded
political opponents of President Vladimir Putin.
(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2005)