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YUKOS BLUEPRINTS FISCAL TROUBLE-SHOOTING

MOSCOW, June 17 (RIA Novosti) - The Yukos, Russia's largest petroleum company, knows what to do about fiscal claims. The managerial staff offered its blueprints to the federal government and the biggest stockholders today, a company officer said to Novosti.

The rescue plan envisages the controversy settled without litigation by rescheduling the tax arrears, corporate assets sold to government companies, and the managerial staff reshuffled.

"Our biggest holders have approved the plan, as far as I know," said the interviewee.

The Menatep transnational banking group is willing to guarantee to the federal government extra Yukos tax payments on Taxation Ministry demand. The guarantee will amount to the Menatep share of the petroleum mammoth authorised capital, Yuri Kotler, Menatep chief of PR, said to Novosti, yesterday. It is up to all involved parties to determine the form the arrangement will take, he added.

The Menatep is holding more than a half of Yukos stock.

The Taxation Ministry is demanding from the oil giant tax arrears at 99.375 billion roubles, roughly $3.5 billion. Semyon Kukes, Yukos board chair, appealed to holders last week for help to keep the company afloat unless the ministry agrees to have the payments in instalments.

The ministry is litigating with the Yukos over the sum. If it wins, the payments may come from recently unfrozen accounts of companies and persons related to the Yukos and Menatep, an anonymous informant close to Yukos holders said to Novosti.

If instalments are authorised, the Yukos will manage singlehanded, he went on. "The holders will do all they can to keep the Yukos afloat," the interviewee emphatically added.

The federal government is to take pains saving the Yukos from a collapse, even though analysts expect it going bankrupt by the year's end, said President Vladimir Putin as he was addressing the media in Tashkent today.

"Debts are up to the law court and, while the judiciary gentlemen calculate them, the government will work to rescue the company," he reassured.

The President said he was reluctant to speak up on the ticklish issue because every chance word may come to the detriment or the benefit, as the case may be-you never can tell.

"I can say only one thing for sure: the government and other Russian officials are not interested in Yukos bankruptcy, the major company it is," he added.