LONDON: British energy giant BP on Friday said it was ready to offload its stake in troubled Russian joint venture TNK-BP after the shock resignation of the partnership's chief executive earlier this week.
"BP announced today that it has received unsolicited indications of interest regarding the potential acquisition of its shareholding in TNK-BP," it said in a statement, adding that BP intended "to pursue a potential sale".
Monday's resignation of Russian tycoon Mikhail Fridman as TNK-BP head threw one of BP's most profitable overseas operations into turmoil.
Fridman warned Thursday that the lucrative nine-year alliance was paralysed and needed one of two main partners to take full charge.
BP's 50-percent stake has a market value of about $18 billion (14.5 billion euros) and a sale would help the British group meet massive compensation costs resulting from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Shares in BP jumped over 2.8 percent after its announcement, but later fell back to show a gain of 1.04 percent to 399 pence in late afternoon deals on London's FTSE 100 index, which was 1.21 percent lower at 5,256.35 points on concerns about the eurozone and US economies.
"BP was the stock in focus within the FTSE," said Shavaz Dhalla, a trader at Spreadex.
"However, investors should remain cautious as there are still uncertainties concerning the actual value of BP's stake and whether this sale will in fact be enough to finally cover the Gulf of Mexico spill costs."
Fridman said Thursday that tensions within TNK-BP -- Russia's third-largest oil producer -- had been building since BP's failed bid last year to form an Arctic alliance with the Russian state-owned company Rosneft.
He said that the four Soviet-born billionaires who own half of TNK-BP through a consortium known as Alfa Acess Renova (AAR) have been trying to get disputes settled by the appointment of independent directors to the board.
But Fridman accused BP of dragging its feet on those nominees out of fear that the new board members would side with the Russian tycoons.
BP said in its statement on Friday: "In light of these unsolicited approaches (for TNK-BP) and consistent with its commitment to maximising shareholder value... BP has notified Alfa Access Renova of its intention to pursue a potential sale.
"There can be no guarantee that any transaction will take place."
Meanwhile Russia's state oil champion Rosneft said that while it had "never thought" about taking BP's stake in its local joint venture it would study its options now that TNK-BP was on the market.
"We never thought about it before. What we are seeing is a new situation develop on the market," said Rosneft chief Igor Sechin, adding they would have to study all information available before taking a decision.
Rosneft has been mentioned by Russian media as a possible candidate to take a stake in TNK-BP, especially as Sechin was one of the most powerful and trusted aides of President Vladimir Putin and is believed to want to expand the company.
BP's announcement comes as a surprise as it had expressed immense interest in saving the venture because it accounts for a quarter of the British group's overall production and billions of dollars in annual dividends.
Fridman owns 25 percent of TNK-BP through his Alfa Group conglomerate and is its second-largest shareholder after BP, which said that net profits sank 18 percent in the first quarter on lower oil output triggered by the sale of assets to meet costs of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
BP's earnings after tax fell to $5.92 billion in the first three months of 2012 from $7.25 billion in the first quarter of 2011, BP said at the start of May.
The company's fortunes were ravaged two years ago by an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers, sent millions of barrels of oil spewing into the sea and left it with huge compensation costs.
The blast on April 20, 2010, sparked what was been widely acknowledged to be the worst environmental catastrophe in US history.
BP has sold $23 billion of assets as part of its ongoing $37.2-billion divestment programme as it seeks to meet the bill for the disaster.
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