22.03.2005 – 21:12

YUKOS Oil Company

YUKOS to Drop U.S. Bankruptcy Appeal

Houston (ots/PRNewswire)

- Company Will Continue to Pursue All Legal Means in Appropriate
Forums to Stop Expropriation of Assets By Russian Authorities

YUKOS Oil Company today said that it will no longer pursue its
bankruptcy case in the U.S. Courts and will be dismissing its appeal.
Last Friday the Houston District Court denied YUKOS' motion for a
stay pending its appeal of the Bankruptcy Court's order dismissing
YUKOS' Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. Now that YUKOS is no longer able
to obtain a stay from the United States Courts, and no longer has a
reasonable prospect of obtaining relief under the U.S. Bankruptcy
law, YUKOS will pursue its case in other forums.

"We appreciate the stay that the United States Court system has
provided to YUKOS through Judge Clark's temporary restraining order
and otherwise," said Steven Theede, Chief Executive Officer of YUKOS
Oil Company. "This contributed significantly to YUKOS' efforts to
survive as a going concern. YUKOS appreciates the fairness with which
it was treated by the United States Courts."

YUKOS achieved a great deal during its U.S. Bankruptcy Case to
preserve the value of its estate. The Bankruptcy Court, in its
December 16, 2004 Temporary Restraining Order, found that the tax
assessments, which were the basis for the purported tax auction sale
of Yuganskneftegaz in late December 2004, were "not conducted in
accordance with Russian law." The Bankruptcy Court's TRO caused the
Russian Government to admit more openly that it was expropriating
YUKOS' assets, by using a 100% Russian Government-owned company to
buy Yuganskneftegaz and by making public statements at the end of
2004.

After the late-December 2004 auction sale, the Russian
Government's efforts to expropriate assets from YUKOS subsided
somewhat until YUKOS' bankruptcy case was dismissed on February 24,
2005. After the dismissal, the Russian authorities resumed their
campaign of threats, intimidation, arrests and seizures with renewed
vigor.

The U.S. Courts' decisions, which were influenced by comity toward
the Russian Government, left no doubt that they understood that a
wrong was being done in Russia. In its February 24, 2005 order
dismissing YUKOS' bankruptcy case, the Bankruptcy Court found that
the Russian government had acted in a manner that "would be
considered confiscatory under United States law." More recently, the
District Court when denying YUKOS' last effort to obtain a stay from
the U.S. Courts, made clear that it did not "endorse" what was going
on in Russia.

YUKOS also said today that recent decisions by the U.S. Courts in
Houston do not deter the Company from continuing its fight to
preserve the value of its estate and protect its shareholders,
creditors and employees by resisting expropriation of its assets and
pursuing causes of action to recover the value of assets that are
expropriated from it. YUKOS management believes they have a
responsibility to pursue all legal options available in all
appropriate forums to prevent the destruction of the Company at the
hands of the Russian government.

"The management team continues to believe strongly in the merits
of our legal case and we have no choice but to aggressively pursue
all the legal options available to us to right the wrongs that have
been done," said Mr. Theede. "We will now focus our efforts elsewhere
to survive as a going concern and obtain compensation for assets that
have been improperly expropriated from us."

Forward-looking statements. Some of the information in this press
release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements
regarding future events or the future financial performance of YUKOS.
We caution you that these statements are not guarantees of future
performance and involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that we
cannot predict with certainty. Accordingly, our actual outcomes and
results may differ materially from what we have expressed or
forecasted in the forward-looking statements. We do not intend to
update these statements to make them conform with actual results.

Press Service
    Alexander Shadrin
    +7-095-785-08-55
     pr@yukos.ru
    United States
    Mike Lake
    +1-214-714-2004
     mike_lake@dal.bm.com
    London
    Claire Davidson
    +44-7767-351-433
     cdavidson@policypartnership.com

Contact:

Press Service, Alexander Shadrin of YUKOS Oil Company,
+7-095-785-08-55, or pr@yukos.ru ; or United States, Mike Lake,
+1-214-714-2004, or mike_lake@dal.bm.com ; or London, Claire
Davidson, +44-7767-351-433, or cdavidson@policypartnership.com , both
for YUKOS Oil Company