The respective documents have been sent to Yuganskneftegas, Samaraneftegas and Tomskneft. On July 21, 2004 the bailiffs banned these companies from any actions intended to reassign any property. However, the new documents lift these restrictions.

It was reported on July 28 that a representative of YUKOS had sent a letter to the Chief Court Bailiff to declare that in the opinion of lawyers, documents dated July 21, 2004 banned the YUKOS subsidiaries from selling oil. Andrey Belyakov, the chief of the Department of Court Bailiffs of the Justice Ministry, explained today that the ban applied to real estate only, and it did not envisage any restrictions on oil production, refining and sales. It should be noted that the average daily oil output of YUKOS is 1.7m barrels, which is equal to the total amount of oil exports from Iraq. One fifth of the exported Russian oil belongs to YUKOS. Experts are convinced that the government views YUKOS as a stable and reliable supplier of oil to foreign markets, which brings significant revenues to the state budget. Therefore, the government “will not deny the company access to pipelines.”