BP in Battle to Keep Its Accord With Rosneft Alive

 

Months of negotiations with Rosneft, the oil company controlled by the Russian state, and a group of Russian billionaires who are BP’s partners in its current joint venture, TNK-BP, have failed to come to a conclusion, BP said, without giving any details.

“A solution has not been found at this time, although talks will continue,” the BP statement said.

For BP, some analysts believe that much of its prospects for growth — and winning back investors — after the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico depends on clinching the deal in Russia.

Under the arrangement with Rosneft, originally announced in January, BP would gain access to the Kara Sea, one of the icy backwaters of the Arctic Ocean that has recently attracted attention from the energy industry as a new oil frontier. But it quickly hit a legal snag when the Russian shareholders in TNK-BP, who operate through a holding company known as AAR, filed a legal action to block it.

A Monday midnight deadline passed without word from BP or Rosneft.

But the BP chief executive Robert W. Dudley said Tuesday that BP remained “committed to Russia, to working constructively with AAR in TNK-BP, and to our existing good relationship with Rosneft.”

“All parties have worked hard to reach an acceptable resolution, as we believe it could offer significant benefits to BP shareholders, to Rosneft, AAR and Russia,” Mr. Dudley said.

BP said previously that it had offered AAR a range of concessions, including cash and a part in the Rosneft deal, but without success. Some newspapers have reported that BP was locked in talks with AAR trying to buy the stake it does not already own in TNK-BP from the Russian investor group for more than $30 billion.

Mikhail Fridman, chairman of AAR, said Tuesday that the investor group remained “dedicated to the success of TNK-BP” and that “AAR is a long-term strategic investor, and we look forward to working with BP on delivering the next phase of TNK-BP’s growth, both in Russia and internationally.”

He added that the group planned “to continue discussions about potential collaboration among BP, Rosneft and AAR.”

A spokeswoman for Rosneft said the company might issue a statement later Tuesday.

AAR contended that BP had violated terms of the partnership in forging the agreement with Rosneft. An international arbitration court in Stockholm that has handled the AAR complaint ruled recently that BP-Rosneft could complete the part of the deal involving a stock swap, but would have to include TNK-BP in the Arctic exploration part of the agreement.

For the deal to proceed, Rosneft and BP would presumably have to renegotiate terms and either include TNK-BP or somehow buy out AAR’s stake.

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.

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