BP proposes TNK-BP board meeting next week - source
MOSCOW. April 7 (Interfax) - BP is proposing that the AAR consortium, its partner in the TNK-BP joint venture, organize a board meeting next week, an informed source with knowledge of the situation told Interfax.
BP will propose discussing the situation with its deal with Rosneft and the verdict that the Stockholm arbitration tribunal is due to deliver, the source said.
BP and AAR are not commenting.
The board has been asked on three occasions to approve TNK-BP's possible purchase of shares in BP in order to participate in a proposed share swap with Rosneft and to join the Arctic project. Voting failed to take place on two occasions and the board did not approve TNK-BP's participation in the deal with Rosneft on March 12.
AAR set proceedings in motion at the Stockholm tribunal, which is considering the possibility of BP carrying out a share swap with Rosneft in isolation from their agreement on Artic shelf development.
The court on March 24 issued an injunction on the share swap and Arctic shelf deal that BP and Rosneft announced in January in its original form.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, the Rosneft board chairman, has said the asset swap between BP and Rosneft would be completed on time. Companies registered on Cyprus and in the UK have gone to arbitration, but this is all about Russian subsurface resources, he has said.