CORRECTED - Tatneft hires legal firm for Ukraine arbitration

(Corrects description of legal firm Cleary Gottlieb from British in headline and first paragraph)

MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) - Russian oil firm Tatneft (TATN3.MM) has hired international legal firm Cleary Gottlieb to handle international arbitration over ownership rights to a Ukrainian refinery, Tatneft and Cleary Gottlieb said on Monday.

Tatneft claims it lost some 600,000 tonnes of crude, worth around $480 million at current prices, that it delivered to the disputed Kremenchug plant.

Tatneft says it never received payment for the supplies after a new management team took over control of the refinery last October, a move Tatneft describes as illegal.

"The arbitration will be commenced under the bilateral investment treaty between the Russian Federation and Ukraine," Cleary Gottlieb said in a statement. Tatneft declined to say for how much it was suing Ukraine.

The plant is now running at reduced capacity after Tatneft, controlled by the government of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, reduced supplies. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by David Cowell)