TNK-BP says it may consider buying BP assets in case of sale

TNK-BP says it may buy some BP assets if on sale

MOSCOW — Russian-British oil venture TNK-BP would consider buying some of BP’s assets if they are put on sale, the venture’s deputy chief executive said Wednesday.

Maxim Barsky was quoted Wednesday by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying that BP chief executive Tony Hayward discussed this issue with TNK-BP’s chairman Mikhail Fridman during their meeting in Moscow earlier this week.

“If BP is going to sell the assets, we will consider them,” he said, adding that it is not clear yet which assets might be put on sale.

BP’s Hayward met Monday with Russia’s top energy official, Igor Sechin, and assured him that BP is not going to sell any of its Russian assets.

BP owns half of TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest oil firm, and 1.4 percent of state-controlled Rosneft, the country’s No. 1 oil producer.

Hayward’s Moscow visit comes as BP’s costs for capping and cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico spill have reached $2.6 billion.

TNK-BP still hopes to recover the money it put into the development of a huge Siberian gas field which is under threat of being seized by the state, Barsky said.

The Russian government has recently threatened to withdraw the license to develop Kovykta because TNK-BP has failed to meet license requirements, putting pressure on TNK-BP either to sell the asset or see it seized by the state. The oil firm’s subsidiary holding the license to Kovykta filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

Barsky said the sale of infrastructure at Kovykta could help recover the investments.

The company earlier said it had invested $664 million in developing the field, which contains about 2 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.