LONDON — BP said on Thursday that it had completed the sale of its 50 percent stake in the Russian affiliate TNK-BP. In a series of transactions, BP will wind up receiving around $12.5 billion in cash and will own 19.75 percent of Rosneft, the largest Russian oil company.

With the sale, BP aimed to resolve one of two problems that have clouded its future and depressed its stock price. It is swapping a long-troubled relationship with its Russian partners in TNK-BP for a new alliance with Rosneft, one of Russia’s two big state-run oil and natural gas companies, and its powerful chief executive, Igor I. Sechin. BP executives hope that the company’s interests are closer to those of Mr. Sechin who is trying to forge Rosneft, which is a collection of different assets, into a leading international oil company.

“BP has invested in Russia for more than 20 years and for a decade we have been Russia’s largest shareholder through our involvement with TNK-BP,” the BP chief executive, Robert W. Dudley, said in a statement. This transaction “gives us a wonderful opportunity to forge a new partnership with a great Russian oil company.”

Also on Thursday, the A.A.R. consortium, another of BP’s Russian partners, announced that it had completed the sale of a 50 percent stake in TNK-BP.

“This paves the way for Alfa, Access and Renova to capitalize on major new opportunities in Russia and around the world, ” Stan Polovets, the chief executive of A.A.R., said in a statement. Alfa Group, which is controlled by Mikhail M. Fridman, said it would be setting up an international investment company with its nearly $14 billion share of the proceeds.

Acquiring control of TNK-BP makes Rosneft the world’s largest listed oil company by output, with more than 4.5 million barrels a day of production.

BP is hoping that it can replicate at Rosneft the investment experience of TNK-BP but without the friction. Since BP invested $8 billion in 2003, production at TNK-BP has grown 41 percent, BP said.

BP wants to help Rosneft increase its output by introducing new technology and better management practices.

TNK-BP has been remarkably successful at prolonging the life of its mature fields in West Siberia through the application of BP best practices, said Oswald Clint, an analyst at Bernstein Research in London. “Rosneft will want to get the most out of its mature West Siberian fields and the benefits will accrue to BP over time,” he said.

Mr. Sechin of Rosneft said, “We welcome BP as the major shareholder of Rosneft, which will take part in shaping the company’s strategy.”

While BP appears to have a good shot at gaining better footing in Russia, it continues to be dogged by uncertainty about its future in the United States, which provided about 30 percent of its output last year. Mr. Dudley has so far been unable to shake the consequences of the 2010 oil spill that killed 11 people on a Gulf of Mexico drilling rig and led to the spewing of millions of barrels of oil from the stricken Macondo well. The extent of BP’s liability for the spill is the subject of an ongoing civil trial in New Orleans.

Last year, BP considered a settlement in the $15 billion to $20 billion range before agreeing in November to pay $4.5 billion to settle criminal charges with the U.S. Justice Department.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/business/global/rosneft-finalizes-acquisition-of-tnk-bp.html?partner=rss&emc=rss