First it was Shell that was forced to sell out its oil venture in Russia, now BP is being forced out of its natural gas joint venture.
Russia's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, has put the Ango-Russian oil venture on notice to expand its production to untenable levels or forfeit their development licence to the massive Kovykta gas field.
Current production is at 33-million cubic meters per year. The company has been given an ultimatum to raise that to 9-billion cubic meters per year by May, or else.
The order, from a local branch of Russia's environmental watchdog, Rosprirodnadzor, puts the Anglo-Russian oil group TNK-BP in an impossible position that appears designed to force it to sell its controlling stake in the $2bn (£1bn) Kovykta gas field.
"Yet industry analysts say that even if it were possible to raise production at Kovykta to 9 billion cubic metres within three months, most of the gas would have to be flared off since demand in the surrounding Siberian region of Irkutsk is just a fraction of that figure and under Russian law TNK-BP is not allowed to export gas."
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