BP’S troubles in Russia continue as the oil major was fined £1.9bn by a Siberian court for damages over an aborted tie-up with state-owned Rosneft.
BP described the claims against it as a ‘corporate attack’ and said it would appeal against the ruling.
The long-running claim had been brought by Andrey Prokhorov, a minority shareholder in the British oil major’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP.
Prokhorov said the attempted 2010 joint venture with Rosneft violated an existing agreement which stipulated that all of BP Russian ventures should be handled by TNK-BP.
Observers say that Prokhorov is backed by AAR, the group of Russian billionaires who control the other half of TNK-BP. AAR denies this.
Over the past four years the uneasy relationship between AAR and BP has become so hostile that in June the UK firm put its stake in the venture up for sale.
VSA Capital analyst Malcolm Graham-Wood said: ‘This tells you all you need to know about why BP is getting out of TNK-BP, or, more realistically, why it cannot do business with AAR. With friends and business partners like these, who needs enemies.’
Shares in BP rose 6p to 438.7p.
Source: dailymail
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