The company will invest $3.3 billion this year, with the main projects being oil deposits in the Irkutsk region in Siberia, in the Orenburg region in the Urals, and on the Yamal peninsula in Russia's north.

TNK-BP plans to invest $800 million in development of the Yamal deposits in 2011, increasing to $1.5-1.8 billion in 2013. The amount of investment in Yamal is dependent on the speed of construction of the Purpe-Zapolyarnoe oil pipeline to connect the region to trunk pipelines, Brezitsky said.

Output in traditional western Siberian oil regions may decline at rates of about 3 percent to 5 percent in the near term, Brezitsky said. The government may have to lower taxes to encourage companies to maintain production, he said.

The company's CEO-designate Maxim Barsky said that the firm's 10-year development strategy envisages production growing by two percent before the implementation of the Yamal projects and by four percent after it. The company wants to become the largest integrated oil and gas company in Russia, and plans to raise oil production by four percent annually from 2014-2015.

Barsky, TNK-BP executive vice president for strategy and business development, is TNK-BP Group's future CEO, effective 1st  January 2011.

To meet its targets TNK-BP, like Lukoil, will have to look beyond Russia's borders where state champions Rosneft and Gazprom are the key players. Already in talks to buy BP assets in Venezuela and looking at BP’s operations in Vietnam, TNK-BP may have its eye on BP assets in a third country, Algeria. According to sources familiar with BP's assett sale to cover the clean up costs and liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP considers its Algerian operations as not core to its business, and TNK-BP may be interested in buying them. Discussions are at an early stage and no deal is imminent on any of the three although the Venezuelan deal is thought to be closest to completion.TNK-BP is already part of Russia's Consortio Ruso venture to develop heavy oil in Venezuela.