“We don’t want large shareholders to work in the company’s management. This is our position of principle,” he stressed. Mr. Kukes added that shareholders should not influence the day-to-day management of the company. In view of this, a decision was made about the resignation of Mikhail Brudno as President of the company YUKOS PM. He is the last shareholder in the company who also holds a management position.

In Mr. Kukes’ opinion, Western oil companies should follow the example of British Petroleum if they want to cooperate with Russia. Other companies are not as active as BP, they do not build pipelines and do not increase production, Mr. Kukes says.

Recent events connected with the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky have slowed foreign investment in Russia, Reuters reports. However, Exxon Mobil Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp. are considering taking a stake in YUKOS, while ConocoPhillips is continuing talks with Russian oil major Lukoil about pursuing projects.

Kukes said he expected Russia to become the world’s largest producer of crude oil by 2009, surpassing Saudi Arabia. According to him, Russia’s oil production will increase 9 percent to 9m barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2004. The country’s daily oil output is expected to be in the range of 10m to 11m barrels of oil equivalent next year.