In a landmark agreement, U.K. supermajor BP and Russian state-run oil major Rosneft have agreed to form a strategic alliance that involves a share swap and includes a plan to jointly explore and develop an area in the Russian Arctic covering 125,000 sq. km.
IHS World Markets Energy Perspective
Significance: The agreement represents a major new
commitment to Russia by BP, which is effectively doubling down on its existing
presence in Russia as the company continues to divest assets elsewhere around
the world in order to generate cash to pay for its liabilities from the Macondo
oil spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico last year.
Implications: BP's CEO Bob Dudley, who just three years
ago was effectively forced to leave Russia as part of the spat between TNK-BP's
shareholders, called the agreement between BP and Rosneft "a new template
for how business can be done in our industry". He also noted the alignment
of interests that has been achieved via the cross-shareholding deal between the
British multi-national oil firm and the Russian national oil company.
Outlook: BP's brash deal with Rosneft could give the
U.K.-based oil firm a new lease of life following its disastrous oil spill last
year, but BP's decision to bet the house on Russia could spell further trouble
for the company in the United States.
BP Maps Out a New Future
In the nearly nine months since the blowout of the MC-252
oil well and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig in the U.S. Gulf of
Mexico led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history, BP mainly has been engaged
in divesting assets and shrinking its project portfolio in an effort to raise
cash to pay for the clean-up operation and to gird itself for expected future
liabilities. As the U.K. supermajor has sold off assets elsewhere around the
world, BP's operations in Russia have become, by default, more important to the
company's overall growth and development strategy. In some cases, BP has even
sold some assets to its Russian joint venture (JV), TNK-BP, allowing BP's
Russian partners in the JV to achieve their own expansion ambitions, all the
while generating cash for BP and permitting the company to retain a stake
(indirectly) in these assets.
On Friday (14 January), however, BP sought to draw a line
under its Macondo troubles, announcing a landmark agreement with Rosneft that
is geared to put the U.K. firm on a path to secure its future. BP's direct
investment in TNK in 2003 to form TNK-BP was ground-breaking in its own right,
but this time BP may have one-upped itself, announcing an arrangement with the
state-run Russian oil company that will see the two firms swap shares and
create a strategic exploration alliance to carry out exploration and
development of three licence blocks on the Russian Arctic continental shelf.
Under the agreement, announced at a news conference in the U.K capital, London
by BP CEO Bob Dudley and Russian deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, BP will
receive 9.5% of Rosneft's shares (giving BP a 10.8% overall stake in Rosneft)
in an all-share swap deal that gives Rosneft 5% of BP's ordinary voting shares.
The two companies also agreed to explore and develop the EPNZ 1, 2, and 3
licence blocks in the South Kara Sea that were awarded to Rosneft in 2010. The
three blocks cover approximately 125,000 sq. km, an area roughly equivalent in
size and prospectivity to the U.K.'s North Sea.
Dudley hailed the agreement as "a new template for
how business can be done in our industry", adding that, "This unique
agreement underlines our long-term, strategic and deepening links with the
world’s largest hydrocarbon-producing nation. We are very pleased to be joining
Russia’s leading oil company to jointly explore some of the most promising
parts of the Russian Arctic, one of the world’s last remaining unexplored
basins". Sechin, also the chairman of Rosneft, noted that the deal
includes a commitment by both companies to seek additional opportunities for
international collaboration beyond their 50:50 partnership at Ruhr Oel, the
German refining venture in which Rosneft joined BP in October of last year
after reaching a deal to buy out PDVSA's stake. Eduard Khudainatov, Rosneft's
president, praised the deal with BP as a step forward for implementing Russia's
offshore strategy, adding that the new Arctic JV "will utilise the
experience and expertise of BP" to grapple with a project that is "unique
in its complexity and scale both for Russia and the global oil and gas
industry".
Concerns and Opposition Abound
The new BP-Rosneft cross-shareholding arrangement
certainly breaks new ground in terms of an IOC-NOC partnership, but it is BP's
recent track record that has environmentalists up in arms about the company's
plan to explore in the South Kara Sea. News of the deal generated a strong
rebuke from Greenpeace, which issued a statement citing the fragility of the
Arctic environment saying, "It seems that company learned nothing last
year in the Gulf of Mexico". Russian officials and BP executives clearly
feel otherwise, however, with some suggesting that BP's experience with the
Macondo spill means it now has a "comparative advantage" vis-a-vis
other oil companies when it comes to capping deepwater spills and applying best
operating practices. Rosneft and BP have agreed to establish an Arctic
technology centre to ensure the safe extraction of hydrocarbon resources from
the Arctic shelf.
Nevertheless, there was a visceral, immediate reaction
from some U.S. politicians to the news of BP's new Russian alliance, coming
hard on the heels of the release from U.S. president Barack Obama's National
Commission panel investigation into the Macondo spill recommending a moratorium
on Arctic drilling. Edward Markey, the top Democrat on the House of
Representatives Natural Resources Committee, called for the deal to be
investigated by the Committee on Foreign Investment, saying derogatively that
"BP once stood for British Petroleum. With this deal, it now stands for
Bolshoi Petroleum". Michael Burgess, a Republican member of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, said that the deal "deserves some analysis
and scrutiny", noting the potential national security implications considering
BP's ownership of several critical oil infrastructure assets in the United
States, such as the Trans-Alaska pipeline. BP was also the top petroleum
supplier to the U.S. military in 2009.
The Obama administration has yet to comment on the
BP-Rosneft arrangement, but the perception that BP is reorienting its focus to
Russia and away from the United States, post-Macondo, is sure to put further
strain on BP's relations with the U.S. government. By contrast, U.K. secretary
of state for energy and climate change, Chris Huhne said that the arrangement
was "groundbreaking", adding that it was "good news for Europe,
for the U.K,'s energy security and worldwide". Russian prime minister,
Vladimir Putin also gave his blessing to the deal, which was only announced
after Dudley flew to Moscow after first meeting with Putin earlier on Friday to
secure the powerful Russian prime minister's approval of the deal.
Outlook and Implications
For BP, the Rosneft share swap and Arctic exploration
alliance represent a turning point for the firm as it embarks on a future that
no one could have possibly foreseen one year ago. In spite of the Macondo
experience and at the same time because of it, BP is betting that its
relationship with the Russian government, which has often been fraught with
problems, will now be its saviour. Just as BP opted to partner with TNK after
first battling with the Russian firm over Sidanco, now the U.K. supermajor is
once again choosing to align itself with the Russian state (via Rosneft), just
a few short years after a TNK-BP shareholder dispute (aided and abetted by
Russian authorities) threatened to tear that JV apart. BP's view in Russia
seems to be: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
BP and Rosneft said that the share-swap deal, estimated
to be worth nearly US$16 billion, should be completed in a matter of weeks.
Although both the U.K. and Russian governments are already on board, there are
several potential flies in the ointment to a smooth implementation of this
so-called "model arrangement". Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), BP's
erstwhile partner behind TNK-BP, has raised questions about whether BP's deal
with Rosneft violates the terms of the TNK-BP shareholder agreement between BP
and AAR. Stan Polovets, chief executive of AAR, said that the terms of the
TNK-BP shareholder agreement say that "all new business opportunities in
Russia and Ukraine must be pursued through TNK-BP", meaning that the
BP-Rosneft deal would violate these terms. BP, however, said it was confident
that this issue would be resolved in a "businesslike way".
BP clearly feels that it has a trump card to play with
AAR, should it come to that, now that the U.K. supermajor has reached an
agreement with Rosneft. Speculation is already swirling that Rosneft will buy
out AAR and join BP as a joint shareholder in TNK-BP now that BP has
essentially outmanoeuvered AAR in striking its own partnership directly with
the Russian state. For Dudley, who was essentially kicked out of Russia in 2008
by the Russian oligarchs behind AAR who thought that he was steering TNK-BP in
the wrong direction, getting Rosneft to kick out AAR from TNK-BP would no doubt
be sweet revenge. On the other hand, lest everyone get ahead of themselves in
crowning BP for its deft strategy, it is worth noting that a similar "strategic
alliance" between BP and Gazprom, announced in June 2007 in conjunction
with a deal to sell TNK-BP's stake in the Kovykta field to the Russian gas
giant, has come to nothing. Furthermore, BP and Rosneft have already partnered
to jointly explore off Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East, with virtually
nothing to show from it. Finally, there is also the prospect that BP is simply
jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by tying its fortune to
Rosneft. BP has its own baggage with the Macondo liabilities that Rosneft will
now help carry, but the Russian oil major itself is still haunted by the ghost
of Yukos.
Shareholders in the now-defunct Russian oil company are
pressing for restitution from Russia in a US$98-billion lawsuit in the European
Court of Human Rights, and recently a string of foreign court rulings have gone
against Russia. In a potentially ominous statement, Yukos spokeswoman Claire
Davidson said, "BP shareholders should be concerned that once again the
company has invested in a deal with Rosneft in assets over which there is a
significant question as to security of Rosneft's ownership". A
cross-shareholding partnership may be a new model for IOC-NOC co-operation, but
the Rosneft-BP alliance has many potential problems to overcome in order to
become the success that the two companies are betting on.
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