By Melissa Akin and Douglas Busvine
LONDON/MOSCOW, June 10 (Reuters) - A vehicle to reinvestnearly $14 billion earned by two Russian billionaires from theirstake in TNK-BP will be headed by Jonathan Muir, who as the oilventure's finance chief managed billions in dividend flows,three sources said.
Soviet-born tycoons Mikhail Fridman and German Khan,together with associates from their Alfa Group consortium, wantto plough their proceeds from the sale of TNK-BP, a partnershipwith BP, into international oil and telecoms.
TNK-BP's co-owners of nearly 10 years - BP, Fridman, Khanand two other tycoons - received a total of $55 billion fromRosneft in a deal that handed the Russian state oilmajor the world's largest crude oil reserves and installed BP asits 20 percent shareholder.
Last week Russian media reported that Khan had moved hisoperational base to A1, a private-equity style entity which grewout of Alfa's old oil and commodity trading arm, Alfa-Eco, whereKhan spent his early years in business.
"Jonathan is already over there," said one of the sources.Another source said his immediate focus as chief executive wason running a low-risk treasury operation.
Alfa representatives declined to comment.
It was not immediately clear whether Muir, an oil executivein Russia for a decade and a half, would head A1 itself, or aspecialised A1 unit set up to manage the oil and telecomsinvestments. He is expected to be London-based.
The Briton left TNK-BP with Khan and another of thecompany's co-owners, Viktor Vekselberg, in the first wave ofexecutives to depart when the merger was completed in March.
TNK-BP generated $19 billion in dividends paid to BP, theoligarchs and minorities under Muir, who before joining TNK-BPwas an executive at Sidanco, one of the oil assets pooled by BPand its tycoon partners in 2003 to create the 50-50 partnership.
Sources familiar with the oligarchs' plans say they don'tplan to re-create TNK-BP and are likely to look for explorationopportunities in regions such as Latin America, as well as toreinvest some money in Russia.
Oil industry sources see the vehicle as possibly beingmodeled on Vallares, a cash shell founded by financier NatRothschild which later bought Turkey's Genel Energy, a producerfocused on the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan.
Former BP CEO Tony Hayward took over at Vallares afterleaving BP and now heads Genel, while John Browne, Hayward'spredecessor, is a partner in Riverstone, a private equity fundfocused on energy, where he is co-head of renewables funds.
Khan met Browne and Hayward and other potential dealpartners in London earlier this year, sources familiar with thediscussions have said.
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