Beleaguered Russian oil company Yukos lost its desperate bid for shelter in American courts when a Texas judge dismissed its bankruptcy case, saying the company did not have enough of a presence in the United States to establish US jurisdiction over a Russian company.

Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly defended the purchase of Yukos oil company assets by a state-owned firm, saying today that the state was getting its due.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today scheduled a news conference that is expected to be overshadowed by the controversial sale of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s core unit and the Kremlin’s course toward Ukraine.

The plot thickens over the mysterious backroom deals that have quietly handed the Kremlin control of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s most important production unit – an apparently secret, no-bid sale to Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft.

Russia has sold the heart of the Yukos oil empire in an auction reminiscent of the country’s notorious privatisations of the 1990s, analysts said, as the former CEO of the company offered bitter season’s greetings to the Kremlin from behind bars.

AN unknown company Baikal Finance Group has been declared winner of an auction for Russian oil firm YUKOS’s main production unit, after outbidding gas monopoly and favourite Gazprom.

A previously unknown Russian company called BaikalFinansGroup bought the core production unit of oil giant Yukos at auction for €7bn today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets for a fraction of what Yukos executives say it is worth.

Russia’s obscure Baikalfinansgroup bought Yukos’ core production unit at auction for $9.3bn (€7bn) today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets.

A bankruptcy judge in Texas granted a “last resort” request by collapsed Russian oil giant Yukos for a temporary injunction to block this weekend’s auction in Moscow of its main production subsidiary.

A Moscow court has barred the embattled Russian oil giant Yukos from holding an emergency shareholders meeting next week.

IN a desperate bid to stay in business, the beleaguered Russian Yukos oil giant has filed for bankruptcy and is demanding the cancellation of this weekend’s auction of its main production unit.

The Russian government plans to sell a majority stake in the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil company at an auction on December 19, the Interfax news agency reported today.

The head office of the embattled Russian oil giant Yukos was raided by law enforcement agencies.

Russian oil giant Yukos’ chief executive officer Stephen Theede said today that the company would call an emergency shareholders meeting to consider a possible bankruptcy.

More than 75% of the beleaguered Yukos oil company’s 2000 tax debt has been recovered from the company, a Russian Justice Ministry official was quoted as saying today.

OAO Yukos Oil Co, battling to avert bankruptcy, said the Russian government may be considering ways to avoid a breakup of the company in settling a $7.5 billion tax bill. Shares of Yukos rose.

A Russian court stopped the government’s seizure of shares in a key subsidiary of a troubled oil giant today, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Russia’s largest oil producer, battered by a gigantic overdue back taxes bill, says it may have to halt its main production units within a few days because of a bailiffs’ order, the Interfax news agency reported in Moscow.

An investor group based in Britain was today reported to have proposed to the Russian government to pay the crushing tax debt of the Yukos oil company in exchange for the Yukos shares held by its jailed chief executive and his partners.

Russia’s richest man, ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges that could jail him for 10 years, while authorities tightened the grip on the beleaguered oil company’s key production assets.