New York, April 12: Yukos, the crippled Russian oil company, has scheduled a long-postponed annual meeting for June 24 to elect a new board as it braces for more legal wrangles and the possible sale of its share in a refinery in Lithuania.

On Friday, hearings are scheduled to begin in Moscow Arbitration Court over two lawsuits brought against Yukos by Rosneft, the state-owned oil company that won the majority of Yukos?s assets in a forced government auction in December to defray a $28 billion tax bill.

Steven M. Theede, the Yukos chief executive, and Bruce Misamore, its chief financial officer, and other managers fled Russia last year amid a broad Kremlin attack against Yukos and its founder, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, whose criminal trial is winding to a close.

In an interview Saturday from Paris, Theede said management was ?operating in an environment of great fear and an intimidation.? Even so, Theede said, Yukos was in talks with the Lithuanian government about a refinery there, Mazeikui Nafta, in which Yukos owns just over 50 per cent.

Lukoil, the Russian oil producer, has also expressed interest in buying the refinery, which would help crude exports reach markets outside Russia. Theede declined to confirm any Lukoil offer.

?There?s obviously keen interest in the refinery among different companies, and anything we do will be done in very close coordination with the Lithuanian government,? Theede said.

Theede declined to say if he was nominated to the new board. Asked if he would attend the June meeting in Moscow, he said, ?I haven?t decided yet.?

Yukos ended 2004 as the biggest oil producer in Russia, with an average of 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, up 6 per cent from 2003, Theede said.

But after the auction of some of its assets, including its largest oil field, Yukos now produces only 600,000 to 700,000 barrels a day ? a rate Theede said was unlikely to grow this year.

Rosneft is seeking $11 billion in lost revenue from Yuganskneftegas, the former Yukos unit, contending that Yukos sold the crude oil at a discount. Theede declined to say how Yukos would respond.