OREANDA-NEWS. April 16, 2007. The receiver of bankrupt oil firm Yukos will auction its service companies on May 16, the receiver's office announced in a notice in government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta on Saturday.

The starting price for the lot will be 1.67 billion rubles ($65 million), the notice said.

"The decision has been taken to form a single lot comprising Yukos' service companies, including construction, maintenance, information and technology companies," Nikolai Lashkevich, a spokesman for Yukos receiver Eduard Rebgun, said in a statement Friday.

The sale will include Yukos' eight oilfield service companies that failed to attract any buyers at an auction earlier this month, when the starting price was set at 992 million rubles ($38.42 million).

The government is holding a string of auctions to sell off Yukos' assets to pay off its debts of over $26 billion.

Rosneft has transferred $7.6 billion to pay for a block of its shares previously held by Yukos, Rebgun's office said Friday.

Rosneft bought the 9.44 percent stake of its own equity at an auction last month, the first lot in a series to sell off Yukos, which was destroyed by $33 billion in back-tax claims.

"The transfer of the ownership will begin on Monday, April 16," Lashkevich said in a statement. "Within three working days of the final payment date the transfer protocol of the previously concluded sale and purchase agreement will be signed."

The second batch of mainly gas assets went for $5.8 billion to Italian firms Eni and Enel, which plan to sell the bulk of them to Gazprom.

Analysts expect Yukos' other main assets will also be snapped up by Rosneft and Gazprom