Yukos To Stop Crude Oil Shipments

Yukos Oil, Russia?s biggest oil exporter, said it may next week halt rail shipments that carry a quarter of the company?s crude, including exports to China, after the government froze its bank accounts over a tax dispute, Bloomberg reports.
The company prepaid rail shipments until the end of next week, chief executive Steven Theede said in Tomsk, a west Siberian region from where Yukos sends oil to China. Russia expected to sell 160,000 barrels of oil a day to China, Russian Railways said this month. Yukos ships 400,000 barrels a day by rail, Theede said.
Yukos, which extracts more oil than Opec member Libya, will shave 160,000 barrels a day from its 2004 production target of 1.8 million, unless it gets access to cash, Theede said. Crude storages at oil fields can take in only about two days of production, he said. Yukos paid for pipeline shipments until the end of August.
?We?re the only Russian company that sends oil to China,? Theede said. ?Rail shipments will be affected before those by pipelines? by Yukos?s problems with accessing its cash.
Russian government bailiffs froze Yukos?s accounts as they sought to satisfy a $3.4 billion tax bill for 2000, which Yukos has said may bankrupt the company. Russia?s year-long investigations into the company and its biggest shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, increased the perception of risk regarding Russia.