Standoff grows over Russia-BP venture

MOSCOW: BP, the huge British oil company, rejected demands from a group of Russian billionaires to fire the head of their lucrative TNK-BP natural gas joint venture in Russia, it said Friday, deepening a confrontation between shareholders as Russia’s biggest state-controlled oil companies seek a stake in the venture.

Tensions between Russian and foreign shareholders in the company, the largest foreign oil producer in Russia, boiled over this week after the billionaires’ consortium sought the resignation of Robert Dudley, TNK-BP’s chief executive Thursday evening.


Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Veskselberg and Len Blavatnik, a Soviet-born U.S. citizen, cited disagreements over investments and asset sales, and expressed concern that Dudley was managing the venture solely in BP’s interests.

On Friday, BP said Dudley was not stepping down. “We’re standing very firmly behind him,” said Roddy Kennedy, a spokesman for BP in London.

Earlier this week, Dudley, who has headed the joint venture since its formation in 2003, lashed out at the Russian shareholders, telling a Russian newspaper the company was suffering from a “breakdown” in management, a remark that the consortium called “deeply inappropriate.”

IHT