Gazprom head Alexei Miller denied on Monday that his company had plans to buy oil giant BP’s stake in its TNK-BP Russian joint venture.
“This is the first time I’ve heard about it,” Miller said, when asked by journalists if Gazprom had made BP an offer for its stake in TNK-BP.
Last week, a source said BP had received an offer from a Russian state-owned company for its share in TNK-BP.
BP currently has a 50 percent stake in TNK-BP, and the other half is held by the AAR consortium of four Russian billionaires.
Last week, one of them, Mikhail Fridman, resigned as TNK-BP’s CEO, saying the firm’s management had become “paralyzed” by differences over future strategy.