page_title: Rosneft
section_title: Acquisition of assets of Yukos
hierarchical_section_title: Rosneft / History / 2000s / Acquisition of assets of Yukos
caption_attribution_description: View of Sofiyskaya Embankment from across Moskva River. Balchug Street (far left), Belltower of St. Sophia (middle), Rosneft Headquarters. The latter was built in 1890s as free public housing.
context_page_description: PJSC Rosneft Oil Company is a Russian integrated energy company headquartered in Moscow. Rosneft specializes in the exploration, extraction, production, refinement, transport, and sale of petroleum, natural gas, and petroleum products. The company is controlled by the Russian government through the Rosneftegaz holding company. Its name is a portmanteau of the Russian words Rossiyskaya neft'.
  Rosneft was founded in 1993 as a state enterprise and later incorporated in 1995, acquiring a number of state-controlled gas and oil assets. Rosneft became Russia's leading oil company after purchasing assets of former oil company Yukos at state-run auctions. After acquiring OJSC TNK-BP in 2013, then one of the largest oil companies of Russia, Rosneft became the world's largest publicly traded petroleum company.
  Rosneft is the third largest company of Russia and the second-largest state-controlled company after Gazprom in Russia in terms of revenue. Internationally, it is one of the largest oil companies, ranking 24 in terms of revenue. The company operates in more than twenty countries around the world.
context_section_description: Starting in 2004, the Russian government organized a series of auctions to sell the assets of Yukos Oil Company, of which Rosneft won the majority. On 22 December 2004, Rosneft had purchased Baikal Finance Group which bought Yuganskneftegaz (Yugansk), a main asset of Yukos, three days earlier at a state-run auction for US$9.35 billion to satisfy tax debts. According to some estimates, this operation was directed by Russian authorities in order to nationalize Russia's oil and gas industry. In response to the deal, Andrei Illarionov, then a senior Putin economic advisor, denounced it as "fraud of the year".
  In 2005, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (former chairman of Menatep) and Platon Lebedev (business partner of Khodorkovsky) were sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. In February 2007, they were charged again and accused of stealing $25 billion worth of oil from Yukos subsidiaries. They were convicted, but in 2013 Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky and 2014 the Russian supreme court announced that Lebedev should also be freed early.
  The purchase of Yugansk in 2005 greatly increase the number of assets and production for Rosneft. Subsequently, Rosneft filed a lawsuit against Yukos in connection with the use of the understated transfer prices for the purchase of oil from Yuganskneftegaz prior to its breakup. At the same time, Rosneft itself also purchases oil and gas from its subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, at transfer prices.
  In May 2007, Rosneft won a number of auctions for the sale of Yukos' assets, including five refineries and oil companies Tomsk Oil Company and Samara Oil and Gas Company, making it the largest oil company in Russia. According to experts on the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, the assets of Yukos, bought by Rosneft at auction organized by the state, went to the company at a discount of 43.4% of the market price of this property. In 2007, the former assets of Yukos provided 72.6% of oil and gas condensate production and 74.2% of Rosneft's primary refining. In June, Rosneft paid $731 million for the transportation assets of Yukos, which had declared bankrupt in August 2006 after three years of litigation over tax arrears. In August, Bogdanchikov said that although the Yukos acquisitions had increased Rosnefts debt to $US 26 billion, he planned to reduce debt to 30% of total assets by 2010 by tripling refining capacity and expand into China.
caption: The Rosneft headquarters next to the Saint Sophia Church on the bank of the Moskva River
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