BP's Dudley to visit Moscow next week: source

LONDON (Reuters) - Bob Dudley, BP Plc's newly appointed chief executive, will fly to Moscow next week to meet shareholders in its Russian joint venture TNK-BP, a source close to the company said on Friday.

The two groups fell out in 2008 after a bitter row over control of the venture but relations have improved since then.

Dudley will travel with Tony Hayward, BP's outgoing chief executive, the source said. BP declined to comment.

The oil giant said this week it sought to raise up to $30 billion from asset sales to help meet the cost of cleaning up the Gulf oil spill, the biggest in U.S. history. The group has earmarked assets in Vietnam, Colombia and Venezuela.

TNK-BP, in which BP has a 50 percent stake, said on Thursday it considered buying BP's Venezuelan assets.

"TNK-BP supports the intent of its 50-percent shareholder BP to strategically realign its asset base in Venezuela and is actively evaluating the opportunity to participate in the assets," a company spokesman told Reuters.

BP reported a second quarter loss of $17 billion after taking a $32 billion hit from the costs of cleaning up the Gulf spill.

(Reporting by Christina Fincher; Editing by Maria Golovnina)