BP's Bob Dudley pours cold water on Russian deal

"Whether that project goes forward or not, it's very quiet. This is part of a big portfolio of exploration pursuit," he said at the launch of the company's annual statistical review of world energy markets in London. "Sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not," Dudley noted.

Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg was clinging to hopes that the deal could be revived in one form or another, even though he conceded that negotiations were "silent" at the moment.

Rosneft has many Arctic blocks which BP could help it explore, Svanberg told reporters "It will come back … we are obviously a favoured partner for Rosneft," he said.

Shares in BP closed down 4p at 444.15p, but Svanberg denied that Dudley had been damaged by the failure to seal a tie-up with Rosneft signed in January.

The company's partners in its TNK-BP Russian joint venture, AAR, blocked the deal on the basis that TNK-BP should be used as BP's primary vehicle for investment in Russia under a shareholder agreement.

Dudley also said that BP, which had hoped that the deal with Rosneft would mark a turning point after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year, was not in settlement talks with the US Department of Justice over litigation related to the incident.

Neither was BP in settlement talks with any of the other firms involved in the Macondo well, he said. BP agreed a $1.1bn settlement with Mitsu, one of its partners in the doomed Macondo well in May, raising hopes that its other partner in the well, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, would also agree to contribute to the clean-up bill. February 2012 has been set as the trial date for hundreds of spill-related lawsuits, including one launched by the US Department of Justice.

The DoJ is suing BP for the worst offshore oil spill in US history. A judge will weigh the evidence to determine if BP and other defendants were grossly negligent in their conduct.

Dudley added that BP is co-operating with the DoJ, but not with a view to settling the lawsuit filed against it.