BP Share News (BP.)

(ShareCast News) - BP and Rosneft have agreed to create a new joint venture, Yermak Neftegaz, to conduct exploration in the West Siberian and Yenisey-Khatanga basins in the Russian Federation.The JV, 51% of which will be owned by Rosneft, will focus on onshore exploration of two areas of mutual interest in the West Siberian and Yenisey-Khatanga basins covering a combined area of about 260,000 square kilometers.In the initial stage, the JV will carry out further appraisal work on the 2009 Rosneft-discovered Baikalovskiy field inside the Yenisey-Khatanga area of mutual interest and on exploration of Zapadno-Yarudeiskoye, Kheiginskoye and Anomalnoye licenses in the West Siberian basin.Field works are expected to being in the winter of 2016/2017.David Campbell, president of BP Russia, said: "This agreement and creation of a new joint venture reinforces BP's commitment to our strategic investment in Russia and our long term partnership with Rosneft. In the current low oil price environment we continue to look for opportunities for future growth."Rosneft's chief executive, Igor Sechin, said: "After creation of the Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha LLC joint venture we are now broadening the geography of our cooperation and creating a precedent which allows us to pursue cooperation in partnership with leading international companies to implement upstream projects at the largest Rosneft greenfield sites in West and East Siberia."At 1115 BST, BP shares were up 1.4% to 370.05p while Rosneft was up 1.5% to RUB321.15.