Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – Russia's TNK-BP, half-owned by BP, will buy three of the British major's assets in Venezuela, one of the firm's billionaire shareholders, German Khan, told journalists on Friday, Reuters reported.

"We will buy 16.7 percent of Petromanagas, 40 percent of Petroperija and 26.6 percent of Bouqeron," said Khan without elaborating on the cost of the deal.

He also said TNK-BP would complete the purchase by year end.

The news came during Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's visit to Moscow, where he met Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and heralded close ties between the two countries.

Russia's largest oil producer, state-controlled Rosneft, also announced Friday that it will pay $1.6 billion for the state-owned Venezuelan firm PDVSA's 50-percent stake in four Ruhr Oel refineries in Germany.

PDVSA jointly owns the facilities with BP. They have a combined capacity of 1.04 million barrels per day (bpd) and are the South American OPEC member's biggest downstream assets in Europe.

Two of BP assets to be sold to TNK-BP are the light-oil producing Petroperija and Bouqeron fields, majority owned by PDVSA.

BP also has a stake in the Petromonagas project, which produces tar-like Orinoco oil and processes it at an upgrading facility into lighter synthetic oil that can be processed by traditional refineries.

The project holds gross reserves of 1.2 billion barrels barrels of oil equivalent.