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Tuesday, 02 December, 2008, 02:20 GMT | more >>

No ownership changes to TNK-BP



By Upstream staff 

TNK-BP expects to keep its current ownership structure after voters elect a successor to President Vladimir Putin in March 2008.

Chief executive Robert Dudley said periodic rumours that the Russian partners would exit TNK-BP lacked substance.

Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg, German Khan and US businessman Len Blavatnik hold the other 50% in Russia's third-largest oil company. A five-year lock-up on their holdings is due to expire around the end of this year.

"Rumours emerge periodically. We are now in a cycle when they are strong. I see no indication it (the current shareholder structure) will not survive post-March 2008," Dudley told reporters on a field trip to Orenburg, in the southern Urals.

"They have an option to do something different, but I don't see them acting like they are planning anything like that," Dudley said of the possibility the Russian partners may sell.

Kremlin pressure has led some foreign oil companies to cede control of energy projects, such as Shell's Sakhalin-2 gas venture, and some industry watchers speculate that TNK-BP may be next.


Friday, 27 July, 2007, 12:03 GMT  | last updated: Friday, 27 July, 2007, 12:03 GMT

Change ahead: President Vladimir Putin will step down in 2008
 

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