British oil major BP said the candidate proposed by its oligarch partners to lead their Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, had won out over BP's candidate and that oligarch Mikhail Fridman would stay at the helm until 2011.
BP and AAR, a consortium representing the billionaire co-owners, said on Thursday that Maxim Barsky, currently TNK-BP's executive vice president for strategy and business development, would become CEO effective Jan. 1, 2011.
Analysts said Barsky's appointment, which has been expected for weeks, highlighted how the Russian partners, previously largely sleeping partners in TNK-BP, had wrested operational control of the company from BP.
The last permanent head of the company, Robert Dudley, left Russia with a number of other expatriate workers at the height of a battle for control of TNK-BP between BP and AAR in summer 2008.
That row ended with BP agreeing to give its billionaire partners more control at TNK-BP.
When Dudley stepped down late last year, Tim Summers, until recently the firm's chief operating officer, became acting CEO.
Fridman, ranked Russia's fourth-richest businessman by Forbes, was appointed interim CEO in May.
Under the terms of the shareholder agreement between the two sides, BP has the right to nominate TNK-BP's CEO.
The London-based oil company nominated Pavel Skitovich, who ran gold miner Polyus Gold for five months in 2007 and worked as a Soviet diplomat in Uganda early in his career.
Skitovich and Barsky took up roles in TNK-BP, Russia's third-largest oil producer, in May with a view to the partners agreeing at a later date on who would be appointed.
After stepping down as CEO of TNK-BP, Dudley joined BP's board.
BP shares were 1.5 percent lower at 580 pence ($9.64) by Thursday afternoon on the London Stock Exchange.
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