TNK-BP: Silly auction

It’s rare these days to find an oil company crying poverty, or indeed one that measures its output in litres of petrol. But if you seek such an entity, look no further than TNK-BP, BP’s Russian joint venture. It dropped out of the auction for a 9.4% stake in Russian state-owned Rosneft after the asking price climbed by $90m, or just 1%, above the start price of $7.5bn. TNK-BP said this was a big chunk of change. «We would have to sell 3bn litres of petrol in the UK to make $100m, « the company s...