TNK-BP Optimistic on Kovykta Deal
http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=25570
MOSCOW - Russian oil firm TNK-BP, half-owned by BP, said on Thursday it
considered recent raids by security services officers and the arrest of an
employee as one-off incidents, not a broad attack on the firm.
The firm's chief executive Robert Dudley also said he expected to close a
long-awaited deal with Russian state gas giant Gazprom around the huge
Kovykta deal at the end of April, saying he was not aware of any bigger
deal
involving the buyout of TNK-BP itself.
"We are back to business. The [security] officials came to us and said
they
came to look at commercial do***ents taken from a state hydrocarbon
company.
They were very professional. They did the right thing," he said.
TNK-BP, co-owned by BP and a group of Russian billionaires, is subject to
long-running speculation that the Kremlin wants the Russian owners to sell
it to a state firm to further tighten the state grip on the energy sector.
Many analysts interpreted the raids by the Federal Security Service (FSB),
the main successor to the Soviet KGB, and the subsequent arrest of an
employee of TNK-BP on suspicion of industrial espionage, as a sign the
Kremlin is stepping up pressure on TNK-BP and its owners.
Gazprom is seen as the most likely buyer of the Russian billionaires'
stake
in TNK-BP, although they have repeatedly denied they plan to sell out.
TNK-BP is the largest single British investment in Russia.
Dudley said he has not heard from either BP nor the Russian shareholders
about plans to sell their stakes. "Commitment to invest continues at the
same levels from both BP and TNK-BP," he said, adding that the Kovykta
deal
was nearing.
TNK-BP, Gazprom and BP are involved in protracted talks over the creation
of
a global joint venture on the basis of the Kovykta gas field, which
belongs
to TNK-BP but which Gazprom agreed to buy last summer after months of
state
pressure on TNK-BP.
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