MOSCOW -- The Russian government has set a December 18 date for the sale of its 74.95-percent stake in the oil company Slavneft, a privatization with potential to yield the highest price in post-Soviet history, a state official said.

A minimum price of $1.7 billion has been set for the sale, Vladimir Malin of the Russian Federal Property Fund told a press conference, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Tenders have to be registered by December 15, Malin said.

Russian news reports have said at least 10 bidders will take part in the auction for the government's stake in the company, Russia's seventh-biggest oil producer.

Foreign groups are also entitled to tender, and analysts believe the sale price is likely to be considerably higher than the official minimum.

A government official speaking on condition of anonymity said last week that the sale could bring in the largest ever sum for a Russian privatization.

The biggest privatization to date in post-Soviet Russia was the 1997 sell-off of the state's 25 percent holding in the telecommunications giant Svyazinvest, which brought in $1.87 billion.

Experts said the sale was likely to transform the landscape of Russia's oil industry. For Renaissance capital, the Slavneft sale is "the last sizable acquisition opportunity for the Russian oil majors in the determinable future," providing the winner with a "huge reserve base" almost wholly located in western Siberia and helping it to "reposition itself relative to peers."

Renaissance capital's analyst Adam Landes said it would also "help the government to meet the budgeted privatization revenue in 2002 of 35 billion rubles ($1.1 billion)," an objective that was threatened following the cancellation of the sale of the government's 5.9-percent stake in Lukoil.

Separately, the Belarus government announced it would sell its 10.83-percent stake in Slavneft on Friday at a starting price of $200 million, with the closing bids to be taken today.

In addition to the stakes held by the governments of Russia and Belarus, 12 percent of the capital is held by an investment trust jointly owned by the TNK and Sibneft oil groups and the remaining 2.22 percent was purchased by private investors after on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

Russian economic observers suggested the Belarus shares could be acquired by Russian oil giant Surgutneftegaz.

"It (Surgutneftegaz) is perhaps the only Russian oil company with a good working relationship with the Belarus authorities," the Aton Investment Bank said in a research note.

The sale of Slavneft's shares will be of keen interest to the country's other oil companies, Stephen O'Sullivan of the United Financial Group said.

Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, Sibneft and TNK, which rank among the top five russian oil producers, have already expressed an interest. A spokesman for Surgutneftegaz recently said his company would be prepared to pay up to $1.5 billion for the Slavneft shares, "and perhaps more."

With four billion dollars in cash on hand, Surgutneftegaz is seen as being strongly placed for taking over the Slavneft shares, though it will face stiff competition.

Sibneft, which coordinates most of Slavneft's exports, will consider the acquisition of the Slavneft shares to be a strategically important operation, an analyst with the Aton Brokerage Group said.

The current chief executive officer of Slavneft is a former official with Sibneft.

Slavneft's production is likely to reach around 16 million tons this year, most of it extracted by its subsidiary Megionneftegaz, located in western Siberia.