Nefteyugansk
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, located south of the Ob River
Ob River
The Ob River , also Obi, is a major river in western Siberia, Russia and is the world's seventh longest river. It is the westernmost of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean .The Gulf of Ob is the world's longest estuary.-Names:The Ob is known to the Khanty people as the...
, close to the larger city of Surgut
Surgut
Surgut is a city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on the Ob River near its junction with the Irtysh River, the largest in the autonomous okrug and the second largest in Tyumen Oblast. Population:...
. Population:
It is currently served by Surgut International Airport.
It was founded on October 16, 1967, after an oil field had been discovered on a small forest clearing in the middle of the taiga
Taiga
Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...
marshland in 1961. The main and the only big enterprise in the city Yuganskneftegaz was founded in February 1966. The name 'Yugansk' comes from the indigenous Khanty name of a small river near the city, nefte means oil in Russian, and gaz is natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
. The economy of the city remains petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
-based, and was a major center for the Russian oil enterprise YUKOS
YUKOS
OJSC "Yukos Oil Company" was a petroleum company in Russia which, until 2003, was controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a number of other prominent Russian businessmen. After Yukos was bankrupted, Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to prison.Yukos headquarters was located in...
, which owned Yuganskneftegaz. In fact, the "Yu" in "YUKOS" comes from the "yu" in "Nefteyugansk" and therefore from "Yuganskneftegaz
Yuganskneftegaz
Yuganskneftegaz is a wholly integrated subsidiary of Rosneft that owns and operates the second largest oil production complex in Russia. It was formerly the most important production subsidiary of Yukos, but was expropriated by the Russian government and given to Rosneft, a state-owned...
". The other three letters come from the oil-refining factory "Kuibyshev-Org-Sintez", situated in Samara
Samara, Russia
Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...
.
In June 1998, a city mayor, Vladimir Petukhov, was shot dead on the way to his office. There are two main versions for his murder: some believe Petukhov was shot because he started a conflict with Yukos, with the second version saying mayor was killed by gangsters who operated a local city market, which Petukhov shut down. On September 20, a deputy mayor of Nefteyugansk, Dmitry Yegortsev, was assaulted and wounded with a knife. Another deputy mayor, Igor Gribanov, died in fire at his home in 2006.
Since January 2005, Yuganskneftegaz has been owned by the state-owned oil company Rosneft
Rosneft
Rosneft is an integrated oil company majority owned by the Government of Russia. Rosneft is headquartered in Moscow’s Balchug district near the Kremlin, across the Moskva river...
.