BP dealt a second blow as Russian headquarters raided

BP WAS hit by a second blow in Russia yesterday as bailiffs raided its Moscow offices 24 hours after the group’s hopes of reviving a stalled joint venture plan with state‑owned Rosneft were crushed.

The swoop on the Russian HQ of BP Exploration Operating Company was ordered by a court in Tyumen, Siberia, to search for documents related to the abortive tie‑up with Rosneft.

The case has been brought by Andrei Prokhorov, a minority shareholder in BP’s existing Russian joint venture TNK-BP. He alleges that two BP executives on the TNK-BP board must have known about the secret negotiations for a new j/v between the company and Rosneft.

Prokhorov claims that the two executives then frustrated TNK-BP’s attempts to replace BP in the deal with Rosneft, costing the venture 87 billion roubles (£1.8bn). BP’s existing Russian partners in TNK‑BP have opposed the alliance with Rosneft signed in January, claiming it broke an agreement precluding other Russian oil business deals.

Yesterday’s raid came a day after US energy giant Exxon-Mobil signed a joint venture with Rosneft giving it access to Arctic fields that the British oil major had hoped to develop. The Exxon deal, signed in the presence of Russian president Vladimir Putin, gives Exxon access to potentially substantial reserves in Russia, the world’s biggest oil producer.

BP hit out at yesterday’s raid. Jeremy Huck, the group’s Russia president, said: “It is our opinion that the court order under which court bailiffs are now in our office has no legal grounds. The office’s work has been paralysed. We see these actions as pressure on BP’s operations in Russia.”

Most of the firm’s employees in Moscow were sent home or told not to come to work because of the raid, and the offices were sealed off. BP’s Russian partners in TNK‑BP have also prevented a parallel $16bn share-swap deal between the British firm and Rosneft going ahead.