UPDATE 3-BP withdraws last 60 TNK-BP secondees from Russia

(Updates with Russian reaction in para 8-11)

LONDON/MOSCOW, July 22 (Reuters) - Oil major BP Plc (BP.L) said on Tuesday it was withdrawing 60 remaining technical specialists from Russia, giving ground in a battle with its Russian partners over oil venture TNK-BP TNBPI.RTS.

All 148 BP secondees to TNK-BP have now been withdrawn to be redeployed in BP's businesses globally.

TNK-BP's billionaire Russian-connected co-owners have attacked BP and TNK-BP's BP-appointed chief executive over use of secondees, in a struggle with the British company for control of Russia's third-largest oil producer.

BP executives say they fear their partners are gaining the upper hand and that BP's effective operational control now hinged on intervention by the Kremlin on its behalf. Vice Premier Igor Sechin has praised BP publicly and offered private promises that its interests would be protected but so far this does not seem to have benefited the world's third-largest non-state controlled oil company by market value. BP said it was redeploying its experts to other ventures in regions such as Azerbaijan, the Middle East and the Gulf of Mexico "where their skills are needed and valued".

"We are taking this action reluctantly," Lamar Mckay, BP's executive vice president, said in a statement. "These technical experts have played a huge part in making TNK-BP one of Russia's most successful oil companies in the past few years."

The Russian side said it had long called on BP to use foreign staff as TNK-BP employees, not as secondees, whom it said each cost about $1 million per year.

It added it believed the move would not have a negative impact on production.

"The BP secondees have not been working for TNK-BP for many months now, and the company's operations have not been hampered in any way. In fact, production has been up for the past three quarters," Stan Polovets, chief executive of Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), the investment vehicle for the Russian side, said in a statement.

The secondees were suspended in March as their efforts to renew their visas ran into obstacles. BP said TNK-BP security prevented them working and they were forced to stay at home by an injunction from a Siberian court.

Some left soon after the visa problems emerged in the spring and BP announced in July it was withdrawing 60 more.

Apart from secondees, TNK-BP itself has had problems with renewing visa and work permits for some of its key managers and former employees of BP, including TNK-BP's CEO Robert Dudley.

Dudley has until Sunday to present a contract to Russia's migration service to renew his visa. (Reporting by Mike Elliott and Tom Bergin in London and Melissa Akin and Dmitry Zhdannikov in Moscow; editing by David Cowell)