On Tuesday, March 27, a subsidiary of the state-controlled Russian oil company Rosneft a 9.44-percent stake in Rosneft that had been owned by the bankrupt oil giant Yukos at an auction.

The hammer price was 197.8 billion rubles, or $7.6 billion. The bidding went through 10 steps before the RN-Razvitiye company won the auction. The other bidder was TNK-BP, a joint venture including Britain’s BP PLC.

Yukos once was the biggest oil producer in Russia, but the company was driven into bankruptcy after the politically charged arrest of its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the levying of billions of dollars in back-tax bills.

The state auctioned off Yukos’ prime production subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz at the end of 2004, selling it to an apparent shell company that quickly resold it to state-controlled Rosneft.

That catapulted Rosneft into the No. 3 spot among Russian oil producers.

Rosneft already said that it plans to use the 9.44 percent stake to exchange it for assets in Russia and abroad. A part of the stake may also be taken to the stock market to increase the company’s free float.

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