MOSCOW (AP) —Shareholders of BP PLC's Russian venture announced Friday that billionaire Mikhail Fridman would stay as its chief executive through 2013 while his deputy, tipped as in line for the top job, is leaving the company.
TNK-BP, owned on a parity basis by the British oil giant and a group of Russian billionaires, is Russia’s third-largest oil producer.
The shareholders said in a joint statement on Friday that Fridman will continue to serve as the chief executive until the end of 2013, when the company would nominate a replacement.
The announcement came hours after Maxim Barsky, TNK-BP’s deputy chief executive, whom the management named as a future chief executive, said he was leaving the company. The statement said his position of a deputy CEO would be abolished.
TNK-BP has been one of Russia’s most successful oil company since its formation in 2003 and paid some $34 billion in dividends to BP and AAR. But the venture became the stumbling block to a key oil deal between BP and Russia’s state-owned Rosneft earlier this year.
An obscure minority shareholder of TNK-BP is now suing BP for 409 billion rubles ($13 billion) in damages for the failed deal that he said could have benefited TNK-BP.
The Fitch Ratings agency said in a statement on Friday that the lawsuit could be damaging for BP’s credit rating.
"If a $13 billion lawsuit against BP PLC gains traction in the Russian courts, it could trigger a review of BP’s ‘A’/Stable rating," the agency said.
In another change of the management structure at TNK-BP, Alexander Dodds, who worked as head of ExxonMobil’s business in Qatar, will serve as BP’s representative in charge of upstream activities. Russian corporate heavyweights Viktor Vekselberg and German Khan would continue to represent AAR, the consortium of Russian investors.
Jeremy Huck, president of BP’s operations in Russia, said in the statement that the British company "welcomes this agreement which clarifies the composition and structure of the management team."
