Michael J. Economides and Donna Marie D’Aleo have written an important chapter for a new Energy Report published by Transitions Online, which takes a comprehensive look at the early legacy of Yukos – even going so far as to tell the story of American oil experts Joe Mach and Don Wolcott, who came aboard to help the company in the 1990s to turn around its production miracle. Many people forget that when Mikhail Khodorkovsky acquired Yukos, the company was unprofitable, on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with debts, and producing below 10% of capacity. Under his management and the technical expertise to these men, they turned around a declining oil company to achieve 20% growth in production annually for three years. Economides and D’Aleo write “Such a feat has never been seen before, nor is it likely to be repeated by any oil company, anywhere.” Here is just an excerpt from the article, and below the full text:

There is an interesting and telling story about the Khodorkovsky/Yukos saga. We conducted an informal (and admittedly non-scientific) poll of 30 Russian oil executives, both native and expatriate, for this book, asking: “What was Khodorkovsky accused of?” Without exception, all answered tax evasion or fraud by Yukos. In fact that was not the case. The criminal charges against Mikhail Khodorkovsky were based upon claims that he acted illegally to acquire a fertilizer company known as Apatit during its privatization in the 1990s. All did acknowledge that his fate had nothing to do with anything other than the hubris Khodorkovsky demonstrated toward Putin. There it is then. If punishment is intended to serve as deterrence for others, this punishment served its purpose. But this was not the traditional notion of justice preventing a similar crime, but rather this: insult the powers that be, and receive your comeuppance in return.