MOSCOW, May 3: Russian state-run oil major Rosneft bought key assets belonging to bankrupt oil group Yukos on Thursday for $6.8 billion (5.0 billion euros) in a deal that analysts said made the firm Russia's biggest oil producer.

The deal is a further boost for Rosneft, whose chairman Igor Sechin is the deputy head of the Kremlin administration, and confirms the company's status as the main beneficiary from the auctioning off of the once mighty Yukos empire.

“The purchase of assets in eastern Siberia will help us strengthen our position in this region. It's a strategically important region for us,” Nikolai Manvelov said.

The auction took place at Yukos headquarters in Moscow and included the sale of Tomskneft, the East Siberian Oil and Gas company and other major production and refining units in eastern Siberia, auction officials said.

Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow, cited production figures from April showing that Rosneft capacity would now be 1.86m bpd, over Lukoil's 1.8m barrels per day.—AFP