LONDON (Reuters) – Oil giant BP has succeeded in preventing the public airing of comments from a former senior in-house lawyer about lawsuits stemming from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as part of an unfair dismissals action.

John Skipper told a British employment tribunal on Wednesday that he had been passed over for promotion because he was over 50 years of age, and that his case highlighted a culture of ageism at BP.

BP denies the accusation and said comments Skipper made in his witness statement, about the oil spill lawsuits, were irrelevant to his claims, and only intended to embarrass BP.

BP’s lawyer John Bowers said the company has no wish to stifle evidence but he argued the tribunal was being used to reveal “confidential information about highly sensitive matters.”

“We’re concerned about the use of a witness statement in relation to purported age discrimination to ventilate the claimant’s views on a major piece of litigation,” he added.

The Tribunal agreed that some comments in Skipper’s witness statement, regarding BP’s lawsuits, should be redacted before being made public and that questioning on these parts should be done in private.

While court filings are usually publicly available in the U.S., the British judicial system takes a different approach.

LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) – The bid vehicle of former BP Plc Chief Executive Tony Hayward and financier Nathaniel Rothschild completed its controversial $2 billion acquisition of Kurdistan-focused Genel Energy on Monday.

An expected rise in shares of the group, previously known as Vallares and now known as Genel Energry Plc, failed to materialise. The stock traded up less than 1.0 percent at 1000 pence at 0805 GMT, ahead of a 0.8 percent drop in the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index.

The shares had been suspended since the deal was announced in September.

Analysts had predicted a significant rise in the shares, because the group had made good on its pledge to find emerging market oil reserves for a modest price.

Some analysts also predicted the group’s plans to bolt on other acquisitions in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq would be a winner with investors.

The shares were also expected to get a lift from the fact the company expects to enter the FTSE 100 index of the UK’s largest companies, which means passive, tracker funds will be forced to buy its shares.

The deal marks Hayward’s return to a senior management role in the oil business after being forced out of BP following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He will be CEO of Genel Energy Plc.

LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Norway’s Statoil has agreed to buy a stake in an exploration block offshore Suriname from Tullow Oil, adding to the list of international oil companies entering what industry sources say could be a major new production province in South America.

Statoil is to buy a 30 percent interest in block 47, on undisclosed terms, joining Royal Dutch Shell Plc and France’s Total as an investor in a region Tullow calls “the Guyanas trend”.

London-based Tullow will retain a 70 percent stake.

Tullow has bought exploration rights to large swathes of territory offshore French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana, hoping to replicate its success in finding big fields offshore West Africa.

The company believes the regions have shared geology stemming from when Africa and South America were still connected many millions of years ago.

In September, the theory was boosted when Tullow announced its Zaedyus well, in which Shell and Total have stakes, struck oil offshore French Guiana.

Analysts welcomed the ‘farm-down’.

LONDON, Nov 17 (Reuters) – The most senior energy officials from the Kurdish region of Iraq and from the central government were due to meet on Thursday to try and resolve a spat over a major oil deal involving U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil .

Kurdish Regional Government Natural Resources Minister Ashti Hawrami and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister with responsibility for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, were due to meet at the sidelines of a conference in Turkey, a source familiar with the matter said.

The two sides have been at loggerheads since the Kurds announced last week that Exxon had signed a deal to explore in the region.

Baghdad, which considers such contracts illegal, threatened to cancel Exxon’s licences in the south of the country in response.

Shahristani declined to take questions from reporters in Istanbul, and the semi-autonomous Kurdish government also declined comment.

However, a Kurdish representative in the central government said he expected a solution to the impasse.

“I don’t believe that the central government of Iraq will cancel any signed contracts or contracts that are already in place, and particularly a contract with Exxon Mobil,” Deputy Prime Minister Ross Nouri Shawis told Reuters in an interview in London.

LONDON, Nov 15 (Reuters) – British gas producer BG Group Plc kicked off the race to succeed Chief Executive Frank Chapman on Tuesday, naming three executives who it said were being considered for the top job, while adding an external hire was also possible.

Chapman, who has helped build BG from a UK-focussed player into a $74 billion international oil and gas giant, will step down before the end of 2013, the group said.

Chris Finlayson, managing director for Europe and central Asia, Chief Financial Officer Fabio Barbosa and Martin Houston, managing director for the Americas and head of BG’s liquefied natural gas unit, will be given additional duties to test their suitability for the CEO role, a BG spokesman said.

“We have identified three internal candidates .. This is all part of an orderly succession plan,” he said.

Finlayson will take over BG Advance, the unit responsible for BG’s exploration strategy, capital projects and IT & technology capability. He will also be responsible for overseeing a possible change of BG Group’s organisation.

Barbosa, who replaced the man who was previously seen as Chapman’s likely successor, Ashley Almanza, less than a year ago, will add strategy and portfolio development to his current duties. Martin Houston will become chief operating officer in addition to his existing roles.

Long-time CFO Almanza stood down from BG’s board and resigned as chief financial officer in March this year. He remains a vice president at the company.

LONDON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has signed oil and gas exploration deals with Iraq’s Kurdistan, an adviser to the Kurdish government said on Friday, in a bold step that prompted warnings from Baghdad that the move could jeopardise the company’s future in the country.

A senior Iraqi oil official said the central government knew that Exxon was in talks to explore in the region and had warned that any deal with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) could result in the termination of Exxon’s deal to develop the giant West Qurna field.

Baghdad and the government of the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region have longstanding disputes over oilfields. Baghdad deems contracts between the KRG and foreign oil companies to be illegal.

“The KRG has for the last few months been in discussions with a number of major oil companies. This resulted in the recent signing by Exxon Mobil of contracts to explore in six blocks,” KRG adviser Michael Howard said.

He did not disclose details of the contracts or the locations of the blocks.

Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, director of the Iraqi oil ministry’s contracts and licensing directorate, said the government had sent three letters to Exxon Mobil last month.

“All three letters were clear,” Ameedi told Reuters. “The signing of any contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government without the approval and the knowledge of the Iraqi central government and the oil ministry will be considered illegal.”

LONDON/BAGHDAD, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil has signed oil and gas exploration deals with Iraq’s Kurdistan, an adviser to the Kurdish government said on Friday, despite a series of warnings from Baghdad that the move could jeopardise other major projects.

A senior Iraqi oil official said Iraq’s central government had been aware that Exxon was in talks to explore in the Kurdish region and the company had been warned that any deal with the KRG could result in the termination of its deal to develop the giant West Qurna oilfield.

Baghdad and the government of the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region have longstanding disputes over northern oilfields. Baghdad deems contracts between the KRG and foreign oil companies to be illegal.

“The KRG has for the last few months been in discussions with a number of major oil companies. This resulted in the recent signing by Exxon Mobil of contracts to explore in six blocks,” KRG adviser Michael Howard said.

He did not disclose details of the contracts or the locations of the blocks.

Abdul-Mahdy al-Ameedi, director of the Iraqi oil ministry’s contracts and licensing directorate, said the government had sent three letters to Exxon Mobil last month warning of “dire consequences” if it signed contracts with the KRG.

“All three letters were clear … the signing of any contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government without the approval and the knowledge of the Iraqi central government and the oil ministry will be considered illegal,” Ameedi told Reuters.

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – The collapse of BP’s planned sale of a $7 billion stake in an Argentinean unit is Chief Executive Bob Dudley’s second failed multi-billion dollar deal this year and has renewed investor concerns about his vaunted turnaround of the group.

Dudley hinted last month that the oil giant could lift its dividend next February, saying the group had reached a “turning point” after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But the failed deal now puts a question mark over those plans.

“As with all things to do with BP the issue is as much to do with risk and this deal failure does highlight execution issues again,” analysts at UBS said in a research note.

BP shares traded down 0.9 percent at 1305 GMT on Monday, lagging a 0.1 percent drop in the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index , after the planned sale of its 60 percent stake in Pan American Energy was abandoned.

The decision of buyer Bridas, half-owned by China’s CNOOC, to terminate talks, will hit BP’s cashflow and make a payout hike harder to deliver.

As the second major deal to fall apart for BP this year – in May a planned $16 billion share swap and multi-billion dollar Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft collapsed — analysts said the failure showed the risks around BP’s strategy of rapid dealmaking.

BP launched a $30 billion disposal programme last year to help pay the $40 billion bill for the spill. The London-based oil giant said this would force it to shrink but that an expansion of exploration and dealmaking would thereafter allow it to grow more quickly.

HONG KONG/LONDON Nov 6 (Reuters) – BP’s plan to sell a stake in its South American unit for $7 billion (4 billion pounds) has collapsed, potentially trimming the oil major’s cash flow and making it harder to raise its payout to shareholders.

China’s biggest offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd said on Sunday its 50 percent-owned unit Bridas Energy Holdings has terminated a deal to buy BP’s stake in Argentina-based oil and gas group Pan American Energy LLC (PAE).

BP hinted at its third-quarter results last month that it would announce an increase in its dividend in early 2012.

However, the failure of the sale of its 60 percent interest in PAE could mean cashflow is lower than might have been expected, making it harder to raise the dividend.

At the results, BP said the deal, initially signed last November, was not as important to the firm’s cashflow today as it was a year ago.

“We reached that agreement last year at a time when oil prices were lower. It was a time when we actually needed to make some divestments of properties. We’re past that point. We don’t actually need to make that divestment….if it doesn’t happen, it’s absolutely fine,” Chief Executive Bob Dudley told analysts at the time.

BP said in a statement on Sunday it will repay a deposit of $3.5 billion received for the PAE stake at the end of 2010, which would not impact its level of gearing.

HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) – BP’s (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) plan to sell a stake in its South American unit for $7 billion (4 billion pounds) has collapsed, potentially trimming the oil major’s cash flow and making it harder to raise its payout to shareholders.

China’s biggest offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd (0883.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said Sunday its 50 percent-owned unit Bridas Energy Holdings has terminated a deal to buy BP’s stake in Argentina-based oil and gas group Pan American Energy LLC BPPAE.UL (PAE).

BP hinted at its third-quarter results last month that it would announce an increase in its dividend in early 2012.

However, the failure of the sale of its 60 percent interest in PAE could mean cashflow is lower than might have been expected, making it harder to raise the dividend.

At the results, BP said the deal, initially signed last November, was not as important to the firm’s cashflow today as it was a year ago.

“We reached that agreement last year at a time when oil prices were lower. It was a time when we actually needed to make some divestments of properties. We’re past that point. We don’t actually need to make that divestment….if it doesn’t happen, it’s absolutely fine,” Chief Executive Bob Dudley told analysts at the time.

BP said in a statement Sunday it will repay a deposit of $3.5 billion received for the PAE stake at the end of 2010, which would not impact its level of gearing.