BP opens old Russia wounds

[unhappycamper]

BP opens old Russia wounds
By John Helmer
Feb 4, 2011

MOSCOW - If you stroll past BP's London headquarters at night, and glance up, to the right of the top story you will see an office window illuminated in bright blue. This may be the playroom of the former BP chief executive Lord Browne. Bob Dudley, the incumbent since taking over from Tony Hayward last June, may keep the blue light on in the evenings while he practices his footwork for dance tunes.

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Khodorkovsky, once Russia's leading oilman, has been serving an eight-year prison term in Siberia since his arrest in 2003. That was due to expire next month, but last December, he was convicted on new charges and sentenced to another six years. Yukos, the company he headed until 2004, has been dismantled, and its oilfield assets absorbed by state-controlled Rosneft, Russia's leading oil producer and exporter.

The announcement on January 14 that BP had agreed with Rosneft to compose a joint venture to explore, develop and operate offshore oilfields in the Arctic seas, and exchange shareholdings - 5% of BP for 10.8% of Rosneft for US$7.8 billion in value - is not exactly a novel one. That's because a similar Arctic oilfield project was devised by Dudley when he worked for Amoco in the mid-1990s - before Amoco was taken over by BP, and Dudley became a BP employee.

The Amoco joint venture was with Yukos, before Khodorkovsky took over; in geography, it focused on the Priobskoye oilfield area onshore near Khanty-Mansiisk, in western Siberia.

The terms of the latest deal, according to BP's press release, focus on an offshore area of the Kara Sea, almost 1,000 kilometers to the north.