Russian authorities agreed to grant nearly 50 work permits to foreign staff of TNK-BP yesterday, but dozens could be forced to leave the country this month because the number falls short of the total required.

Russia’s Federal Migration Service approved 48 out of 49 work permits pending for TNK-BP’s permanent overseas employees. One permit was rejected on a technicality.

The decision leaves open questions that top management, including Bob Dudley, the chief executive, could be forced to leave Russia.

Russian officials will consider a further 14 visa applications. At present 37 TNK-BP employees remain without the proper documentation to work in Russia and will have to leave Moscow by the end of July, barring unforeseen circumstances.

TNK-BP: Timeline of events

The tension has roots in a speech by President Putin last year which set out the Kremlin's "resource nationalism"

Tricky business when Russia ignore rules

Oil and gas in Russia, even where nominally outside Kremlin control, are still subject to its whims

• Russia tries to burn BP

• Don’t let Russia turn gas into a new weapon

TNK-BP: Robert Dudley and the oligarchs

A guide to three Russian co-owners of TNK-BP who are calling for the resignation of chief executive, Robert Dudley

• Russians revolt over TNK-BP as BP denies Kremlin link

Related Links

• Brown summit with Medvedev fails

• Dudley clings on by fingertips to TNK-BP job

In recent months, the Anglo-Russian oil venture has been at the centre of a battle for control between BP and a consortium of four Russian billionaires called AAR, each of which owns half. TNK-BP has also faced a string of visa problems and raids and investigations by security agents and tax officials.

Stan Polovets, AAR’s chief executive, told The Times last month foreign staff were more expensive to employ than Russians.

He also said that TNK-BP was being run like a unit of BP rather than as an independent company. AAR has been seeking to dislodge Mr Dudley from his position as chief executive of TNK-BP.

Separately, TNK-BP said that it had won the latest round of a court battle in Omsk, Siberia, over its use of specialist expatriate secondees. Tetlis, a brokerage that is a small shareholder in TNK-BP, has challenged the practice, but the latest ruling lifted an injunction stopping TNK-BP from using expatriate secondees from BP.

Both BP and AAR deny that they will be selling their stake in TNK-BP. However, it is thought that one or the other is likely to sell all, or part, of their stake to a Russian state-controlled group such as Gazprom.

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