A subsidiary of Russia's state-controlled oil company Rosneft has bought the Volga area oil assets of the now bankrupt oil firm Yukos for 165.53 billion rubles ($6.4 billion), a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Thursday. Rosneft plans $2 billion eurobond in July.

The company has snapped up the majority of Yukos' large assets, including its once-biggest production facility, Yuganskneftegaz, which it purchased at a steep discount in December 2004. Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company, was declared bankrupt August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over the company's tax arrears. Neft-Aktiv, the auction winner, vied for Yukos' oil extracting, oil and gas refining, research and maintenance assets in the Samara region along with Versar. The initial lot price was 154 billion rubles ($5.99 billion), with a bid increment of 260 million rubles ($10.1 million), the auction commission said. Yukos has secured 690 billion rubles ($26.8 billion) from its assets sold in eleven lots at auctions against its liabilities of 709 billion rubles ($27.6 billion), the press secretary for the Yukos bankruptcy manager said. „Considering two forthcoming auctions for lot No. 12 to be held today and lot No. 13 to be held Friday, with an estimated sum of 30 billion rubles ($1.1 billion), all of the creditors' claims will be met in full,” Nikolai Lashkevich said.
With over 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent reserves, Rosneft says it has the world's largest among public companies. It produced about 85 million tons of the fuel last year. Rosneft's good fortunes led to a $10 billion IPO last July, and the company had expressed an interest to continue growing through the purchase of Samaraneftegaz.
Rosneft plans to issue a 7-year, $2 billion eurobond in July, a banking source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. „They plan the deal in July,” the source said, adding that the eurobond will partly refinance a $22 billion jumbo loan facility arranged in March by a consortium of banks to enable Rosneft to bid for assets of bankrupt oil firm Yukos.