Mikhail Fridman the head and co-owner of Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP said on Friday he hopes the board of directors will vote to join an alliance between BP and Rosneft at a forthcoming meeting.
TNK-BP, a joint venture between a group of Russian billionaires and British oil giant BP, announced on Friday that it had postponed a vote to join the alliance until a board meeting on March 12 in Paris.
"The management thinks that the proposal for TNK-BP to join the deal with Rosneft is extremely appealing in strategic and financial terms both for TNK-BP and its shareholders," Fridman said after a meeting of the company's board of directors in Berlin.
In January BP agreed to pay more than $8 billion in shares for a 9.5% stake in Rosneft and an agreement to develop oil reserves in the Kara Sea on Russia's Arctic shelf.
The Times of London said TNK-BP planned to buy 5% of BP to later swap for a share in Rosneft to become a party to the deal. A source told the paper that TNK-BP had already made an offer to BP.
MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti)
