Pouring and absorption

With oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Russian oil companies may add new assets

Hurricane Alex thwarted oil spill control in the Gulf of Mexico last week, but the operation to rescue British Petroleum itself continued in Moscow in the meantime. The head of the company, Tony Hayward, assured that he would overcome all difficulties, and was looking for money in Russia to compensate for the losses from the largest accident in the history of oil production. It looks like he found it. BP's Russian partners are ready to buy part of its assets.

Hayward simply could not help but come to Moscow: a quarter of the company's oil is produced here. More precisely, oil in Russia is produced by TNK-BP, half of which is owned by BP, and the other half by a consortium of Russian shareholders AAR, consisting of Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group, Viktor Vekselberg's Renova, and Leonard Blavatnik's Access Industries. Due to the accident, BP has lost almost half of its value and may drag the Russian partner along with it.

Analysts at JP Morgan are seriously discussing scenarios for the sale or hostile takeover of BP. If it comes to that, then who will get the assets in Russia? In 2003, the deal between BP and Russian partners was coordinated for a long time in the Kremlin, and now it may turn out that a new strategic investor will appear by itself, all of a sudden. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Medvedev summed up those concerns: BP will have to lose a lot of money this year, will Russian partners suffer?

How much BP will eventually lose due to careless drilling is still unknown. Estimates are as high as $50 billion. "There isn't enough money in the world to pay all the claims against the company," US official Kenneth Feinberg, manager of a $20 billion BP-funded compensation fund, said last week. The company is already looking for money. On June 22, it issued $5 billion in bonds, is negotiating new bank loans, and another $10 billion, as BP CFO Byron Grout explained at a recent meeting with investors, the company is going to raise from the sale of assets. We are talking about small projects that are not of fundamental importance to the company.

TNK-BP clearly does not fall into this category. BP could sell another Russian asset - 1.25% of Rosneft shares. But the British preferred not to part with the papers of the main Russian oil company, but to get a bank loan against them. So the chief executive of BP came to Moscow not to look at assets for sale, but rather to look for buyers.

Dialogue with Russia has always been difficult for BP. Two years ago, Hayward was already in Moscow on a diplomatic mission. At that time, relations in the BP-Russian shareholders-state triangle deteriorated to such an extent that TNK-BP's office was searched, and the head of the joint company, Robert Dudley, was summoned to the police. He, like his other Western colleagues, was accused of violating labor laws: they had too many benefits compared to Russian employees. Alfa and Renova also made other claims: from their point of view, the parent company hindered the development of TNK-BP, did not allow it to enter foreign markets and compete with BP itself. In the West, however, they suspected that the conflict was invented in the Kremlin and that things were moving towards the takeover of British assets by Gazprom or another state-owned company.

After lengthy negotiations—one Hayward trip to Moscow was not enough—the parties came to a mutual agreement, moreover, on the terms of TNK-BP. Disliked by Russian shareholders, Robert Dudley left Russia—now he is in charge of the operation in the Gulf of Mexico. And at the helm of TNK-BP was a representative of AAR — Maxim Barsky. Now he and o., but since 2011 he will become a full-fledged head of the company.

This time, Hayward didn't have to fight off the accusations, it was all about business. But the Russian side did not miss the opportunity to demonstrate that Moscow sees that British Petroleum has a weak position. Last Monday, the head of BP was supposed to have a key meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. A few hours earlier, Sechin unexpectedly told reporters what he sees as the point of the conversation: “Heyward is leaving his post and will present his successor.” The Deputy Prime Minister's statement caused a shock in London, and a special rebuttal was issued at the company's headquarters, emphasizing that the board of directors has full confidence in the executive director.

Rumors about Hayward's resignation did spread after the accident, but most observers are inclined to believe that until the oil leak is defeated, BP management will not be changed. Surrounded by Sechin, they assure that his words were impromptu, without any ulterior motive. “Shared the news, the journalists love it,” a source told Newsweek.

The meeting, Newsweek was told, took place at the Rosneft building in Moscow. “It was quite free there in terms of communication, there was no queue to Hayward or, conversely, to Sechin,” says an official who participated in the meeting. Assuring the Deputy Prime Minister that BP is a reliable partner and will cope with all problems, Hayward suggested that the three Russian companies consider buying. He met with LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov, Rosneft CEO Sergei Bogdanchikov and, of course, TNK-BP co-owner Mikhail Fridman. The reaction, however, followed only from BP partners. On Wednesday, Maksim Barsky said his company might consider purchasing refining facilities in Europe.

An old story immediately came to mind. Back in 2004, Alfa Group tried to acquire 50% of the German company Ruhr Oel GmbH (ROG), which owned four oil refineries and two petrochemical plants in Germany. The seller, Venezuelan oil company PdVSA, was willing to go ahead with the deal, but the partner, who owned the other half of ROG, objected. The partner was BP—the company agreed to conduct a joint business with Alfa in Russia, but did not want to share European possessions with the Russian group. Such cases then led to a conflict in TNK-BP.

Times have changed. BP's need for money after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has strengthened the position of Russian companies. "If TNK-BP has any big plans, we're just happy," says a government official. However, the White House emphasizes that BP's Russian partners have not started any consultations with the government yet.

According to the Bank of Moscow, all BP processing assets in Europe can be valued at $5-7 billion. Vitaly Gromadin, senior analyst at Arbat Capital, believes that TNK-BP can allocate up to $2 billion for purchases. buyer. It can provide the necessary BP cash, while the assets will not leave BP at all, they will be received by a company in which British shareholders have 50%, ”says Denis Borisov, an analyst at the Bank of Moscow. But if TNK-BP wants to buy ROG plants again, it could face a Russian competitor. In April, during Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Venezuela, Rosneft held consultations on the purchase of PdVSA's stake in German refineries.

TNK-BP and Rosneft are similar in terms of their business structure: these companies have large production, but there is a lack of refining capacity. It is less likely that BP's assets will be bought by LUKOIL, which in recent years has already acquired refineries in the Netherlands and Sicily, and is now negotiating with ConocoPhillips to buy another plant in Germany.

Another thing is that the purchase of factories does not yet mean the successful expansion of Russian business to the West. All experts point out that refining oil in Europe is becoming unprofitable. Even before the crisis, there were more factories than needed. Now the European economy does not want to recover; does not grow, therefore, and the demand for fuel. “If you buy, then it’s not refineries, but mining assets,” says RusEnergy partner Mikhail Krutikhin. But the oil companies are the last to share their production. That's the way business works.