A dispute over an oil project in Iraq was the “final straw” which triggered a public falling out over control of TNK-BP, the Russian 50-50 joint venture between BP and AAR, a consortium of four local billionaires.

The consortium has accused BP of secretly negotiating with the Kremlin for “as long as three years” to force them to sell out their TNK-BP stake to Gazprom or another state-controlled Russian company.

Speaking with The Times, Stan Polovets, chief executive at AAR, portrayed BP as a heavy-handed partner which used chief executive, Bob Dudley, and a slew of expatriate secondees to establish a “parallel management” within the joint venture to pursue its own agenda.

The allegations, firmly rejected by BP, represent the latest salvo in the escalating battle between BP and AAR.

Yesterday, four directors of TNK-BP Holdings, the group’s main operating unit, resigned ahead of an annual general meeting in Moscow.

Their departure, in protest at Mr Dudley’s leadership of the company, is expected to usher in a fresh round of legal action by rendering the meeting inquorate, thus invalidating its decisions.

Mr Polovets claimed that since the creation of TNK-BP in 2003, BP had torpedoed a series of overseas expansion plans in countries from Venezuela to Azerbaijan.

But a disagreement over a proposed development in Iraqi Kurdistan last Autumn was the trigger which forced the row into the open.

“It was an oustanding project,” said Mr Polovets.

“But it was obvious to us that BP was concerned about losing contracts with the Federal government of Iraq.”

Mr Polovets added that AAR had received information from “various officials” in the Russian government that indicated BP was attempting to engineer a sale of their stake to another party.

Full interview with Mr Polovets in The Times and online tomorrow.

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