Private company

Yukos

Logo: Yukos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

1993–2007 Russian oil and gas company

OJSC "Yukos Oil Company" was an oil and gas company based in Moscow, Russia. Yukos was acquired from the Russian government by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep during the controversial "loans for shares" auctions of the mid 1990s. Between 1996 and 2003, Yukos became one of the largest and most successful Russian companies, producing 20% of Russia's oil output.² Its revenue was $2.7 billion in 1994.¹ It ceased to exist in 2006.¹ Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

1993Founded¹

Industrypetroleum industry¹
HeadquartersMoscow¹
Legal formjoint-stock company, open joint-stock company¹

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OJSC "Yukos Oil Company" (Russian: ОАО Нефтяна́я Компа́ния Ю́КОС, IPA: [ˈjukəs]) was an oil and gas company based in Moscow, Russia. Yukos was acquired from the Russian government by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Bank Menatep during the controversial "loans for shares" auctions of the mid 1990s. Between 1996 and 2003, Yukos became one of the largest and most successful Russian companies, producing 20% of Russia's oil output. In the 2004 Fortune 500, Yukos was ranked as the 359th largest company in the world. In October 2003, Khodorkovsky—by then the richest person in Russia and 16th richest person in the world—was arrested, and the company was forcibly broken up for alleged unpaid taxes shortly after and declared bankrupt in August 2006. Courts in several countries later ruled that the real intent was to destroy Yukos and obtain its assets for the government, and act politically against Khodorkovsky. In 2014, the largest arbitration award in history, $50 billion (€37.2 billion), was won by Yukos' former owners against Russia. This $50 billion award by an arbitral tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration was ruled invalid by the District court in The Hague in 2016, but reinstated by the Court of Appeal of the Hague in 2020.²

Corporate structure

Yukos sits at the top of its group. 5 entities, 1 country on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Yukos Moscow
- Kuibyshevnefteorgsintez Subsidiary · Novokuybyshevsk, Russia
- Samaraneftegaz Subsidiary · Samara, Russia
- Vostochnaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya Subsidiary · Tomsk, Russia
- Yuganskneftegaz Subsidiary · Nefteyugansk

Built from subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0); major holders from Schedules 13D and 13G. Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 1993.¹

The company was created on 15 April 1993 by Resolution No. 354 of the Russian government, following Presidential Decree No. 1403 (17 November 1992), which had directed the government to transfer its directly owned oil and gas operations into separate companies, in preparation for privatization, with the aim of developing the oil and gas sector in Russia.

OAO Yukos Oil Company, known as Yukos (ЮКОС) was one of the companies so formed, on 12 May 1993. Its initial assets included:

Yuganskneftegaz ("Yugansk Oil and Gas": Юганскнефтегаз), a West Siberian oil extraction operation based in Nefteyugansk, part of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Tyumen Oblast ("district");

Kuybyshevnefteorgsintez ("Kuybyshev Oil and Organic Synthesis": КуйбышевнефтеОргСинтез), founded in 1975–1976, comprising three Samara Oblast oil refineries in Kuybyshev (now known as Samara), Novokuybyshevsk and Syzran, and various other oil-related operations.

The company was named after these assets, "Yuganskneftegaz" + "KuybyshevnefteOrgSintez". The Samaraneftegaz ("Samara Oil and Gas") refinery was added to Yukos in 1995 under decree No. 864, and it later incorporated eight distribution companies in Central Russia and Siberia and assorted technical businesses.

The first chairman and president appointed to lead Yukos, then still a government owned business, was Sergei Muravlenko (Russian: Сергей Муравленко), the former General Director of Yuganskneftegaz and son of Viktor Muravlenko, a former head of the oil and gas sector during the Soviet regime.

From Wikipedia’s article on Yukos, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Leadership

Who has led Yukos, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

FounderMikhail Khodorkovsky¹

Subsidiaries and ownership

Subsidiaries

From Wikidata.¹

Acquisitions

Succeeded by Rosneft¹

Revenue over time

As stated on Wikidata, in the currency reported.

Revenue

1994$2.7B¹

Controversies and legal

International legal proceedings of former Yukos shareholders vs. Russia

The Yukos Oil Company's former shareholders and management filed a series of claims in courts and arbitration panels in various countries, seeking compensation for their expropriation. The largest, for over $100 billion, was filed at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2007 and resulted in the arbitrators awarding Yukos majority shareholders over US$50 billion in damages. US and Russian investors, representing about 15 percent and 5 percent of Yukos, respectively, lack the benefit of an investment treaty. The sole remedy of US-based investors in seeking approximately $12 billion in redress is to request the State Department and the Office of the United States Trade Representative to espouse the claim to their Russian counterparts, as it is determined by the Magnitsky Act of 2012; State Department officials have reportedly raised Yukos investors' concerns at deputy prime minister level in the past.

The total final award in damages announced by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on 18 July 2014 was some $50 billion.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled for Russia to pay the former owners Yukos €1.87 billion ($2.51 billion) in compensation for unfair proceedings of the tax evasion case. Yukos is asking for $333 million to cover losses incurred after its accounts were frozen plus costs and interests.

On 20 April 2016 the District Court of The Hague set aside the decisions of the PCA, ruling that it had no jurisdiction as provisional application of the ECT arbitration clause violated Russian law. In February 2020, the Court of Appeal of the Hague reversed the invalidation and held that the PCA awards were valid.