After Yukos' funeral

MOSCOW -- Yukos, Russia's largest privately
owned oil company, will be broken up on Sunday.
After stumbling under debilitating back-tax
claims of over $28 billion, the company's most
important production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, will
be sold at auction with Kremlin-controlled
Gazprom the likely winner.

...

It took the Kremlin over a year to crush Yukos
and harass the company's core shareholders.
Exorbitant back tax claims, the arrest and trial
of top company officials such as Mikhail
Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, and the freezing
of Yukos' assets and bank accounts have brought
Yukos to its knees. Yukos' publicly trade shares
have taken the wind out of Russia's once booming
stock markets.

But all is not smooth sailing for the Russian state's
theft by taxation.

Yuko's was reported to produce 2% of the world's
oil.

What percentage of the world's oil do you suppose
bureaucraps can produce?

Expect higher oil prices if Putin succeeds.

Think about it.

Full report.