Russian shareholders in oil firm TNK-BP are expected to vote for the removal of its British chief executive Robert Dudley at an emergency meeting.

The move is part of the increasingly acrimonious battle for control of the Anglo-Russian oil company.

The two sides have clashed over the strategy of the company which generates a quarter of BP's oil production.

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The meeting is not expected to be decisive, the BBC's Moscow correspondent James Rodgers said, because the AAR consortium does not have enough support on the TNK-BP board.

Independent head

Only BP would have the power to appoint a new TNK-BP chief executive, but AAR said they would want to replace Robert Dudley with someone independent of the British oil giant.

"The only thing we want is that the person doesn't come from BP so that he or she can manage the company in the interests of all shareholders," Stan Polovets, chief executive of AAR told the BBC's World Service.

BP's investment in the firm is the second biggest foreign investment in Russia.

Relations between the two sides of the firm have become increasingly difficult. BP has complained about the treatment of its staff in Russia.

Authorities had turned down BP's requests for work permits for a number of its executives before reversing the decision last week.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to discuss the issue when he meets Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the G8 meeting of leading industrialised nations this week.

(BBC)

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