TNK-BP RUSSIAN SHAREHOLDERS NOT TO WAIT PAYMENTS FOR THREE YEARS

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LONDON/MOSCOW, May 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russian shareholders of TNK-BP want to speed up the process of payments within the companies' merger, the Financial Times wrote on Tuesday.

According to the newspaper, Russian partners "are pressing the British group to change the terms of the transactions and to pay off the cost of 50% of the stock immediately, not according to the coordinated schedule of distributed payments".

Alfa and Access/Renova (AAR), which is the Russian partner in the TNK-BP transaction, wants to cash the $3.75 billion worth BP stock that the British company is to transfer in three tranches over three years.

"This move may eliminate the important factor that assures BP that the Russian partners will stick to the terms of the transaction at least till 2007," the Financial Times writes.

BP representatives told the newspaper they intended "to make TNK-BP one of the best companies in the world based on the agreements," and expected all parties to abide by them.

"As was announced in February 2003, BP will pay three annual tranches of $1.25 billion in BP stocks estimated at their market value," the British company told the newspaper.

"It is for our partners to decide what to do with the agreement. The agreements envisage that by 2007 AAR will own a 50-% stake in TNK-BP," the company was quoted as saying.

Sources close to the Russian owners of the joint venture told the Financial Times they did not "want to wait for three years and need money to reinvest in more profitable enterprises already now".

The transaction of setting up TNK-BP worth $14 billion was concluded in 2003.

The company's Russian representative declined to comment on the information published in the Financial Times for RIA Novosti.

"We do not comment on market rumors," he said, adding that conditions of the transactions, agreed upon during the merger, had not changed.

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