Russian authorities on Friday renewed until July 29 a visa for the head of embattled British-Russian oil firm TNK-BP, a day before he would have been forced to leave Russia, an immigration official said. "We have extended his visa... for 10 days" until July 29, a spokeswoman for Russia's federal migration service in Moscow told AFP, referring to TNK-BP chief executive Robert Dudley, a US citizen.
Dudley has found himself at the centre of a boardroom battle between TNK-BP's partners, British oil major BP and a group of Russian industrialists, that is seen as a test for Russia's foreign investment climate. The dispute is also a key challenge for BP as the company accounts for about a quarter of the oil giant's global output and executives have warned the row is tearing the multi-billion dollar company apart.
In the months-long dispute, BP has accused its Russian partners of corporate raiding activities like those from Russia's wild capitalism years. The Russian partners have accused BP of arrogance and called for Dudley's dismissal.
Dudley himself was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on Friday that the migration service had merely given him 10 days in which to prove that his contract was valid despite it not being renewed by the company's board. Dudley says that under Russian law his contract, which officially ran out in December 2007, has been automatically extended. The AAR consortium that groups together the Russian shareholders contends that this is not the case.