Chevron, which is one of America’s largest oil and gas companies, has been courting Yukos for some time in the hope that it could secure a presence in the fast-growing Russian industry.
Sources close to the American company said its latest offer to Yukos for a strategic investment had been triggered by the possibility that the Yukos plan to merge with Sibneft, its domestic rival, was looking shaky.
The Yukos chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is Russia’s richest businessman, earlier this year announced his intention to build a political career and began to fund opposition parties. This set off a dispute with President Vladimir Putin and led to a rash of official actions against his company. Yukos has been raided by police and is now subject to seven criminal investigations, including a murder probe.
Meanwhile, its key shareholder, Platon Lebedev, has been charged with theft of state property relating to a deal in 1994. The Russian courts have refused to release him.
Oil-industry experts now say there is a material risk that the Russian government will try to stop the Sibneft merger through competition laws. A $1 billion bond that Yukos was supposed to have launched this summer to pay for the merger has been delayed.
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The arrest of Lebedev and the Yukos debacle has left foreign investors nervous. Over the past three weeks there has been sustained selling by investors of companies quoted on the Russian stock market.
The abandonment of the merger would leave both Yukos and Sibneft vulnerable to outside approaches.
In recent months pressure has been mounting on western oil companies, including Chevron, Total Fina Elf and Exxon Mobil, to do their own deals or lose out in the race to develop Russia’s vast oil and gas resources. BP, which has been well ahead of the game through its £4 billion investment in its merger with TNK, has set the pace for future deals.
A deal might be difficult for Chevron in the short term because of the uncertainty over Yukos and Sibneft and concerns that Putin might extend his investigations to other oligarchs. However, Chevron and its advisers are working hard to strike an agreement to acquire a significant interest in the region.
The Russian government is eager to ensure that its national oil companies remain at least partly in Russian hands, and is believed to have insisted that no more than 50% of any company is sold.
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But there are few prizes left in Russia. Two of the biggest Russian energy companies, Rosneft and Gazprom, are still state-owned.
A source said: “There are not many targets in Russia. Chevron has had conversations about it, but the outcome is very much dependent on what happens with Yukos and Sibneft.”