Price of 49% Stake at Transpetrol Not to Be Much Higher than Paid by Yukos, RussNeft Believes

He pointed out that in spite of the fact that many companies would like to acquire this asset, his company was still going to take part in the tender. He explained that RussNeft had a delivery contract with Hungarian MOL and acquiring this asset would facilitate transportation of the oil to the Hungarian company. M.Gutseriev said that the amount of the deal would not be much different from the price paid by Yukos. “It may be higher by several million dollars,” he noted.
Yukos bought the stake at Transpetrol at $74 million in the course of privatization auction held in 2002.
Earlier Russia’s government announced it was going to support RussNeft in the purchase of the 49% stake at Transpetrol. The stake belongs to Oil Company Yukos but cannot be sold without approval of Slovakian Cabinet of Ministers. Though no more applications are admitted the date of the auction has not yet been set and is to be determined by the government of Slovakia, 
A number of companies are after Transpetrol stake including Italian Enel. Out of the Russian companies RussNeft is the only one having applied for participation.
Transpetrol is the only company in Slovakia engaged in the business of interior and exterior transit of crude oil via its own pipelines. The company also involved in oil storage business. The length of the pipeline network is 1.32 thousand km and its capacity is 21 million tons.