Moscow flexes its muscles

A year ago, it looked as if private-sector corporations, particularly Yukos and Tyumen Oil (TNK), would bag the best properties and define development strategy in eastern Siberia, where a huge oil and gas province will open in the next two decades. Isabel Gorst reports

BUT THE CONFLICT at Yukos and the arrest and resignation of its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has not just diminished the amount of cash the firm might have to splash out on high-cost, high-risk projects in eastern Siberia. It has also removed from the scene the Russian oil industry's most pugnacious supporter of private over state interest in the sector. With Khodorkovsky behind bars, government calls have grown louder for the state to play a more prominent role in the oil and gas industries. And they are likely to be heeded first in the moulding of strategy for eastern Siberia. Yukos owns a diverse portfolio of assets in the region. They include licences in the Yurubo-Tokhomsk zon