Rosneft, Russia's largest oil company, is not in talks with Russian shareholders in the TNK-BP joint venture on buying their stakes in the company, Rosneft head Eduard Khudainatov said on Friday.
The Vedomosti business daily said earlier on Friday that Rosneft could buy the full 50% stake in the TNK-BP from the AAR consortium of Russian shareholders, and buy a 1% stake from BP, to gain a 51% controlling stake.
"We have not paid attention to this and we have no interest in it," Khudainatov said.
Rosneft struck a $16-billion share swap deal with BP and an agreement to jointly develop the Arctic shelf on January 14.
AAR, the consortium of Russian shareholders in TNK-BP, opposed the deal and secured an injunction in London's High Court on February 1 suspending the share swap until February 25.
Khudainatov said Rosneft may sell some non-core assets as part of an optimization drive. The assets have been tentatively valued at over $1 billion.
The Rosneft chief executive said the company would complete an efficiency review of its assets by March.
MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti)
