MOSCOW, April 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Lord John Browne, TNK-BP petroleum mammoth chair, sat in conference today. Fiscal claims were safely out of the agenda, Igor Shuvalov, President Putin's aide, said to the media."Lord Browne reassured the corporation was very comfortably-off in Russia," he added.Shuvalov's encouraging words concerned last week's alarming news. The TNK, or Tyumen Petroleum Company-part of the TNK-BP Russian-British holding, was confronted with finds of a repeated fiscal check for 2001, with a claim for 22 billion ruble arrears. R27.71/$1 is Central Bank rate for today.
"We have enough time to determine our stance, and accept or renounce the claim, as the case may be," a TNK-BP public relations officer said to Novosti. Fiscal experts made the check as supervising inspectors, he specified.
Total arrears make 26 billion rubles, considering a previous, for four billion, against which the TNK has by now appealed to the Moscow Arbitration Court.
The TNK-BP will certainly offer detailed replies to all claims, Robert Dudley, company CEO, said to a recent Russian Economic Forum in London. The matter is part of usual routine corporate contacts with fiscal agencies, and he is sure the parties will come to a reasonable and mutually satisfactory settlement.
Dudley emphatically called not to draw an analogy between the TNK predicament and the Yukos controversy, what with a world of difference between the two.
The British Petroleum has received reassurances that its Russian-based oilfield development licenses will not be revoked, said Mr. Shuvalov. "No one has ever posed the matter. The law has no reverse action, and that is a rule valid for everyone."
Russia expects to have six or seven natural deposits qualified as strategic, he remarked a propos President Putin's conference with Lord Browne, who discussed a Russian bill on deposits of national purport. "Deposits outside that rank are counted by the hundred-even thousand, so it's incorrect to assume that Russia will encroach on overseas capital's rights," said the presidential assistant.
The TNK-BP intends to launch produce supplies from a Sakhalin-based deposit, 2011, he announced without specifying just which deposit he meant.
"The company never mentioned Projects Sakhalin 4 and 5. The only thing that came up was its prospects to join hands with Rosneft to develop a project," explained Shuvalov.
The TNK-BP regards Sakhalin-based efforts among pivotal projects, and hopes to start supplies from it in 2011, he said.
