The BBC has a story about British Petroleum (BP), whose Russian operation is rumoured to have been shut down - temporarily at least - by the FSB (the Russian secret service):
UK oil giant BP has confirmed it is in talks with the Kremlin regarding the protection of Russian state secrets.
Its comments followed a report in a Moscow newspaper which said the Russian secret service, the FSB, had suspended some operations at BP’s TNK-BP unit.BP denied that any TNK-BP sites had been shut down, but said talks were continuing with the Russian government.
The Kremlin is said to be sensitive to foreign firms having access to exact data on the country’s oil reserves.
Anybody got any ideas? Is this just a storm in a teacup, or an indication that a more difficult business climate awaits foreign investors in the Russian energy industry?
Update: Mosnews has more on this story, which although it clears up some issues, really only adds to my certainty that the Russian obsession with protecting secrets doesn’t fit comfortably with foreign investment:
An official representative of the Russian-British oil major admitted that demands made by the security services “create difficulties in work and perplex the company’s foreign staff”. A source close to TNK-BP said that the company was forced to replace foreign directors and to outsource all the work with maps and secret information to Russian companies. But TNK-BP is facing the state secret problem all over again because all of the company’s large assets will be transferred to a single legal entity which is supposed to be headed by a representative of British Petroleum. Whether the shareholders will re-consider the previous agreement, or whether BP will use its lobbying power to sign an interstate agreement is unclear. The FSB declined to comment on the situation.
The Russian Economy Ministry suggests solving the problem by appointing special deputy directors that would be responsible for secret information. The Federal Security Service suggests that the companies headed by foreign citizens outsource work linked to state secrets to Russian companies.
Still, at least some in the Russian government recognise the difficulties inherent in their stance:
“All approaches are flawed,” Economy Ministry officials admit. “In the first case there is no guarantee that the foreign director won’t gain access to state secrets, while in the second case we create an additional burden on the companies.”
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Insider 01.01.06 at 9:44 am
To say that BP’s Russian operation has been forced to shut down is a little confusing. BP Russia - a handful of petrol stations in the Moscow area - is not affected, because how can it be? Neither has the company’s Russian JV TNK-BP, which seems to have sufered administrative inconvenience at worst. Still, a blow of this type would be big news!
And for God’s sake: it’s not been called British Petroleum since 1999!
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