Profits slump at Russian-British oil major TNK-BP

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian-British oil major TNK-BP on Tuesday announced a sharp drop in its net profits for the first nine months of the year due to a fall in crude prices.

For the nine months to September, net profit at Russia's third largest oil producer plunged 43.7 percent from a year earlier to 3.69 billion dollars, it said in a statement.

Sales slumped 43.6 percent to 24.74 billion dollars, it said, with export prices for Russian Urals crude more than halving.

For the third quarter alone, however, the company said its net profit jumped 34 percent from the second to 1.7 billion dollars, driven by a recovery in crude prices and a 204 million dollars gain from the sale of an oil services unit.

"The third quarter results show that TNK-BP is well-positioned to deliver a solid performance for 2009," TNK-BP interim chief executive officer Mikhail Fridman said.

Meanwhile, output of oil and gas rose three percent to 1.68 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboed) in the nine months period as new projects came on line, the company said.

"The major growth quarter-on-quarter was due to volume growth and performance improvements which continued to contribute to stronger earnings," said chief financial officer Jonathan Muir.

TNK-BP is the third largest oil producer in Russia after Rosneft and Lukoil and represents around a quarter of BP's global oil production.

The joint venture last year was riven by a fierce dispute over control between BP and its four Russian billionaire partners that was resolved in September with BP ceding much of its control at the group.

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