Black-clad special forces raided BP’s Moscow offices on
Wednesday, deepening the company’s problems in Russia after its attempts to
salvage an oil exploration agreement in the Russian Arctic collapsed.
The raid, a day after ExxonMobil signed a deal giving it
access to fields BP had hoped to develop, was ordered to let bailiffs search
for documents in a legal battle over BP’s failed bid to partner Russia in the
Arctic, a spokeswoman said.
But BP, which has a long history of problems in Russia,
denounced the raid and said it feared the search could continue for the rest of
this week.
“It is our opinion that the court order under which …
court bailiffs are now in our office has no legal grounds. The office’s work
has been paralysed,” BP Russia President Jeremy Huck was quoted as saying
by Interfax news agency.
“We see these actions as pressure on BP’s operations in
Russia,” he said.
Most of BP’s employees in Moscow were sent home or told not
to come to work because of the raid, and the offices were sealed off.
The raid highlighted BP’s problems in Russia since it fell
out with authorities this year over its failed Arctic exploration alliance with
state-owned oil firm Rosneft.
A group of rich minority shareholders in TNK-BP, BP’s
Russian joint venture, have sued BP over the failed alliance with Rosneft.
They objected to the pact, saying BP was obliged to pursue
all its Russian ventures through TNK-BP and that they suffered big losses when
the venture collapsed shortly after it was announced in January.
The minority shareholders also prevented a parallel $16bn share-swap
deal between BP and Rosneft going ahead.
Tuesday’s deal between Exxon and Rosneft, signed in the
presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, gives BP’s US rival access
to potentially substantial reserves in Russia, the world’s top oil producer.
The deal was a big blow for BP, finally ending its chances
of salvaging its own agreement with Rosneft.
Yevgeny Minchenko, director of Russia’s International
Institute for Political Expertise, said BP was now vulnerable to police raids –
which can happen frequently in Russia – and short of allies.
“I don’t think that it was the Kremlin or the
government that sent the order to the bailiffs [to carry out the raid]. It’s
just that the people who carry out the decision understand that the authorities
won’t stand up for BP,” he said.
But political analyst Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie
Centre said the raid did not mean BP would now face frequent harassment from the
police or legal authorities.
“Although there is a coincidence in timings between
what is happening with BP and the announcement of the Rosneft-Exxon deal, I
wouldn’t say the search is a sign that BP will be pressured by the law-enforcement
bodies,” he said.
It is not the first time BP has been subjected to such
treatment in Russia.
Security forces searched BP’s headquarters in Moscow in 2008
during a corporate stand-off at TNK-BP that resulted in TNK-BP boss Bob Dudley,
who is now CEO of BP, being forced out of Russia.
Follow us on
