BP withdrawing workers from Russian venture
Oil firm BP said today it was withdrawing the last 60 technical staff from its controversial Russian joint venture.
Around 150 BP workers were based at Moscow-headquartered TNK-BP, with 90 having been removed over recent weeks as relations between the venture’s Russian partners and BP management worsened.
BP said the 60 remaining technical specialists on secondment in Russia were now being redeployed elsewhere.
It is the latest move in a dispute which has seen TNK-BP offices raided by the Russian authorities, BP staff barred from obtaining work visas and criticism of BP management from a billionaire Russian shareholder.
TNK-BP’s chairman Mikhail Friedman last month called for the venture’s chief executive Robert Dudley to quit.
BP said its staff had been unable to provide their services since work visa “complications” prevented them from doing so in March. Workers were then prevented from returning by security staff in TNK-BP and afterwards by a court injunction, the group added.
BP said there was no sign that “this or other attempts to interfere with BP’s ability to deliver technical support will be resolved in the immediate future”.
About the final staff withdrawal, BP executive vice president Lamar McKay said: “We are taking this action reluctantly. These technical experts have played a huge part in making TNK-BP one of Russia’s most successful oil companies in the past few years.”
He said since it was formed in August 2003, TNK-BP’s company’s oil output has grown by an annual average of 5.8%.
It had also paid around €44bn in taxes and duties, as well as €12.6bn in dividends to its shareholders.
Western oil companies are keen to gain access to Russia’s vast oil and gas reserves, but there have been increasing fears that the government is trying to wrest control of these assets from their foreign owners.
