OREANDA-NEWS. August 09, 2010. BP's next chief executive, Robert Dudley, met with Igor Sechin, Russia’s Deputy PM in charge of energy and Rosneft chairman, as well as with Russian TNK-BP shareholders and other management figures from Rosneft. No other details were provided, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE Financial Corporation.

According to a Vedomosti report, the meeting saw a discussion of BP's lucrative business in Russia, as well as the possible sale of BP's assets to its Russian partners in order to raise funds to cover the costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Dudley proposed to Rosneft and TNK-BP that they buy a number of BP's projects in Asia. BP has several stakes in oil and gas fields, pipelines and a power plant in Pakistan and Vietnam. And at this time BP is placing on the selling these assets in Pakistan and Vietnam as part of its effort to sell USD10bn in properties.

View: We assume that for TNK-BP, assets in Venezuela will be more attractive than those in Asia, as the Russian company already has business activity in Venezuela. In our opinion, gas assets might be of interest to Gazprom. As we expect the dialog to continue, we do not anticipate market reaction on this visit.

Valuation and Action: TNK-BP trades on a 2010 EV/EBITDA of 2.6x. We reiterate our BUY rating on TNK-BP Holding with a target price of USD2.52/share.