Vneshekonombank in $5.6Bln Question.

(From The Moscow Times)

State-owned Vneshekonombank may have funded a large part of the controversial purchase of Yuganskneftegaz through promissory notes, Vedomosti reported Monday.

The volume of promissory notes from nonbanking organizations that is held by the bank surged near the end of last year by about $5.65 billion, from 580 million rubles to 157.5 billion rubles by Jan. 1, Vedomosti reported.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in February identified Vneshekonombank as one of the institutions that helped finance the deal.

Yugansk, Yukos' key production unit, was auctioned off for $9.3 billion in December to mystery bidder Baikal Finance Group, which was later acquired by state-owned Rosneft.

It remains unclear how the financing for the Yugansk purchase was arranged. Government officials have offered a range of explanations, including claims -- which were later denied by other officials -- that China's $6 billion prepayment for oil supplies was used to finance the purchase. Speculation also has swirled that a consortium of Russian banks arranged the funding.

Rosneft itself appeared to have been planning to raise money for the purchase by asking its subsidiaries -- Purneftegaz, Sakhalinmorneftegaz and Stavropolneft -- to lend $5.5 billion to the parent company. Rosneft denied that the scheme was connected to Yugansk and announced Friday that it had called off its request for the subsidiaries to hold extraordinary shareholders meetings to approve the loan.