Rosneft announced late Thursday it has acquired BP’s 50 percent share in TNK-BP in exchange for $16,65 billion (€12,88 billion) in cash and nearly 13 percent of Rosneft shares. BP separately acquires 5,66 percent of Rosneft shares from Rosneftegaz.
With the deal, Rosneft surpasses ExxonMobil and becomes the world’s biggest oil company, both by hydrocarbon reserves and production.
It is understood that Rosneft with the deal will invite with BP to join in several of the company’s offshore licenses in the Arctic. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin welcomes the deal.
”This is the acquisition of a strategic partner in a new quality and I hope this will bring new technologies and new projects,” Putin said to RIA Novosti. Igor Sechin is a close ally of Putin.
Rosneft currently holds 41 licenses for offshore production including all fields in the Barents- and Kara Seas. The company has earlier signed up with Norwegian Statoil for the fields in the northern part of the formerly disputed area of the Barents Sea. In the southern Barents Sea, Rosneft has chosen Italian ENI for joint exploration.
Igor Sechin told reporters in London on Thursday that he would welcome BP at one of the company’s larger off-shore projects. “We are carrying out work together with BP in choosing the projects…We know the preferences that BP have and in the near future we will find the zone offshore and agree the terms of joint work there,” The Telegraph quoted Sechin saying.
BP is believed to spend some of the cash from the sale of its shares in TNK-BP to finance outstanding compensation for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill from its “Deepwater Horizon” rig.
