17 January 2007 — Mike Kubena, General Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia:

“ZAO PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit (“PwC”) is currently the subject of legal proceedings initiated by the tax inspection N5 jointly against PwC and OAO NK YUKOS group with respect to the 2002, 2003, and 2004 audits of the Company's statutory financial statements. An initial claim was filed with the Russian Court in mid-December 2006.

The nature of the claim is that PwC did not conduct bona fide audits of OAO NK YUKOS. At the heart of the claim is the allegation that PwC issued an unqualified (“clean”) audit opinion in all years, but raised conflicting observations in a letter to management (commonly referred to as an internal control report). The tax inspection claims that PwC should have known about and therefore alerted authorities about Yukos' tax schemes determined to be illegal by the Russian court. The claim seeks to make the audit contracts for the respective years null and void and requires that the related audit fees should be paid by PwC to the State.

We believe that the tax inspection claim is without merit and is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the roles and responsibilities of auditors as defined by Russian law.

PwC’s statutory role as the company’s auditor was to express an opinion on whether the financial statements, the responsibility for which rests with Yukos’ management, have been properly prepared to present, in all material respects, the company’s financial position and financial results in accordance with the relevant Russian accounting standards. We conducted these audits according to the highest professional and ethical standards strictly in compliance with Russian law and best auditing practices.

Based on these standards, we found that Yukos’ financial statements in 2002 were consistent with Russian accounting standards. As is customary and in compliance with Russian law, PwC raised several matters in a “Management Letter” which Russian law requires to be disclosed to management and not to third parties. The matters raised by PwC in the management letter did not materially affect the company’s financial statements nor did they alter PwC’s opinion on the financial statements.

With regards to the audits of 2003 and 2004, the declaration by the tax inspection made in January 2007 that these audit opinions were “positive” is without any merits.

In our 17 years in Russia, we have developed a firm employing over 2000 Russian citizens and serving companies generating half of the Russian GDP. We will continue to contribute to the creation of Russia’s capital market and the development of many of the country’s leading companies. We will defend our position in the court and trust in the fair resolution of the case.”

For additional comments please contact Vera Totskaya at: (495) 967-6179, (495) 543-0845 or Ekaterina Shapochka at: (495) 232-5750.