RusEnergy

27 February 2007 - Upstream online - Outgoing BP chief executive John Browne and his designated successor, E&P head Tony Hayward, are due in Moscow for two days of talks with Russian business and government leaders. Browne and Hayward are likely to meet Rosneft president Sergei Bogdanchikov, the Moscow Times reported. The paper also reported the Prime-Tass news agency as saying the pair would meet Gazprom officials as well. The visit comes amid growing pressure on TNK-BP, BP's Russian joint venture, to cede a share in its flagship Kovykta project to pipeline monopoly Gazprom. Meanwhile, a TNK-BP spokeswoman told the newspaper that Gazprom had cut the amount of gas it would allow the joint venture to ship through its pipelines from the Achimov gas field in west Siberia from 2.5 billion cubic metres to 1.7bcm.