RUSSIAN authorities have blocked Yukos’s access to $2.6 billion (£1.5 billion) of company funds, raising the likelihood that the oil giant will be dismantled and sold by the Government.

Yukos said yesterday that the Government’s action, to “impose a cumulative arrest” on the funds, could paralyse its operations because it would leave it with insufficient resources to pay employees, suppliers and contractors to continue working.

It is not the first time that Yukos has given warning that it is on the brink of a government-triggered collapse.

A collapse of Yukos, Russia’s biggest oil company, would severely affect Russia’s oil production and underpin a renewed rise in global oil prices. Yukos accounts for about 2 per cent of the world’s oil production and its operation contributes substantially to Government revenue.

However, analysts believe it is unlikely that the Government would risk a shutdown, even if only partial, of Yukos oil production.

But by denying Yukos access to the funds, the Government all but ensures that the oil giant will not be able to pay its $3.4 billion back-tax bill.

Yukos has already failed to meet the Government’s Tuesday deadline to pay the bill.The oil company said yesterday that it had paid more than $2 billion towards the bill by Wednesday, the day after the deadline, and would have been able to increase that amount to $2.5 billion by the middle of this month using its operational cashflow.

Yukos said its planned repayment programme would have ensured that it “fully meets by the end of September the budgetary payment obligations imposed by court” and helped to “forestall the scenario of a fire sale of the company’s most valuable assets”.

But the company said yesterday that the latest accounts blockage by the Government would undermine its efforts, and gave warning that authorities would have to bear responsibility for any consequences.

Yukos said in a statement: “In the immediate future that decision (to block the accounts) might serve as the direct cause of increased social tension in the regions of the company’s operations.

“In such case, the responsibility for the possible consequences and halt in production will fully rest on the (Government) investigator who applied for the (account) arrest.”

The latest accounts to be frozen are thought to be funds held by Yukos’s key Siberian operating units, Yuganskneftegas and Tomskneft. The accounts are with the Russian affiliate of Crédit Lyonnais, the French bank.

It is likely that the Government’s latest action is designed to give it time to sell Yuganskneftegas, an action that Yukos is trying to avert but one the authorities say is necessary to cover the tax debt.

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the investment bank that has been mandated by the Government to value Yuganskneftegas, is expected to complete its work by the end of this month. A sale of Yuganskneftegas is likely to raise about $16 billion.

OIL PRICES DRIVEN UP

Oil prices surged for the second day running as markets reacted nervously to news that the pipeline from Kirkuk, in Iraq, to Ceyhan, Turkey, was ablaze after a huge explosion. October New York crude gained $1.10 to $45.10 and Brent North Sea oil jumped $1.11 to $42.58. Oil traders were already trying to digest events at Yukos. Rodrigo Rato, managing director of the IMF, said that oil prices could undermine world growth, but the IMF would revise modestly upwards its growth forecast, currently 4.6 per cent.