Posts Tagged ‘TNK-BP’

Dr Shamil Yenikeyeff analyses the reasons for the collapse of BP’s Arctic partnership with the Russian state company Rosneft. He argues that the BP–Rosneft deal was inauspicious even before it was signed due to the history of the Kremlin’s reluctance to back BP plc in its often uneasy relations with the AAR consortium – BP’s Russian partners in the TNK–BP joint venture. Dr Yenikeyeff analyses the motives of the key players involved and looks at the possible future of BP’s involvement in Russia.

FULL OXFORD ENERGY 17 PAGE COMMENT

PETROLEUM ECONOMIST

A new book tells the story of the oil industry’s boom-bust cycle through the personalities of its main protagonists. It isn’t always a flattering portrait, writes Derek Brower

The book is especially strong on such juicy details, not least when it describes the machinations – rivalries, personality clashes and egos at work – during the mega-merger period of the late 1990s. Browne’s successor, Tony Hayward, is seen entertaining Gazprom boss Alexei Miller at a Chelsea football match in London. Shell’s former chief, Jeroen van der Veer, argues in German, without interpreters, with Russia’s then president Vladimir Putin about the Sakhalin Energy project at a private function in Holland. And so on.

The majors also have personalities. Exxon, a participant in the mega-mergers when it bought Mobil, is the brooding presence throughout. Shell was repeatedly bruised by run-ins with environmentalists and activists, and its bi-national schizophrenia left it flatfooted as Browne and BP seized the agenda.

Shell also handled its Russian investments badly, unintentionally antagonising the authorities, with humiliation on Sakhalin island the result. The Anglo-Dutch firm emerges from the narrative as a sluggish behemoth, crippled by internal rivalries between the Hague and London, undermined by its own constitution and eventually brought low by the reserves scandal. Phil Watts, the chairman at the time, who was eventually exonerated from wrong-doing in the affair, receives relatively sympathetic treatment in the book. Shell did wrong, acknowledges Bower, but other majors were booking reserves in a similar way and escaped censure or lobbied their way out of it.

But it’s not a book that leaves the reader feeling positive about the characters who dominate the world’s most important industry. “Oil men can play to any rules they are asked to play,” Bower quotes former Shell chairman John Jennings. “Oil breeds arrogance because it’s so powerful.”

THE ABOVE ARE EXTRACTS FROM DEREK BROWER’S REVIEW: FULL REVIEW

Only three years ago, Shell, the world’s biggest oil company, was forced to give up control of the giant Sakhalin development, handing over half of its interest to Gazprom after a dispute over costs and the environment.

Royal Dutch Shell executives publicly complained about the rule earlier this year. The company’s director for exploration and production, Malcolm Brinded, said in February that foreign investors wanted more confidence about accessing the oil and gas riches they discover.

Analysts said the Gazprom Neft bid will be good news for Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the Anglo-Dutch supermajor that is Sibir’s 50-50 partner in the Salym field. Shell would prefer to have Gazprom as a partner there over BP, one of its main rivals.

Sibir also owns a 50 per cent stake in a joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell to develop one of Russia’s most promising fields, Salym, where production hit 80,000 barrels a day in January.

TNK-BP, the Russian oil venture half owned by BP, is launching a bid for a significant minority stake in Sibir Energy, the Aim-listed energy group dogged by corporate governance issues.

Now the company appears to be a takeover target. Earlier this month it denied reports it had received a bid approach from TNK-BP, which was said to be planning a £2.3bn offer. But it now seems there was something concrete behind the tale after all

“It seems like a more natural buyer would be Royal Dutch Shell or Gazprom Neft because they already have partnerships,” Chirvani Abdoullaev, senior oil analyst at Alfa Bank in Moscow, said by telephone today.

BP and its Russian partners in the TNK-BP joint venture have signed the peace deal they agreed in principle in 2008, weakening the British group’s grip on the company.