Barsky cleared to become TNK-BP's new CEO-sources

* Barsky to be officially appointed before end 2009

By Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Zhdannikov

MOSCOW, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Maxim Barsky will become the new chief of Russian oil firm TNK-BP (TNBPI.RTS), sources close to the company told Reuters on Friday after co-owner BP (BP.L) agreed to the preferred candidate of its four Russian billionaire partners.

The appointment follows a long-running dispute between BP and the quartet of Russia-connected tycoons over strategy and control at the 50/50 venture, which generated $5.3 billion in profits in 2008 and is responsible for a quarter of BP's worldwide output. Tensions have subsided recently and analysts have said agreement over the Barsky candidature, first proposed by the tycoons, indicates a return to shareholder cooperation after BP agreed to concede some management control.

"The proposal (of Barsky) was made, the documents are being finalised ... The proposal came from both groups of shareholders," said one source close to TNK-BP, who asked not to be named because he is not allowed to comment on the issue.

"He (Barsky) accepted the invitation and it is assumed that everything will be finalised before the New Year and he will begin his duties from 2010," said a second source close to the company following a TNK-BP board meeting on Friday.

TNK-BP's spokeswoman Marina Dracheva said the meeting of the board was informal and although it discussed candidates for the CEO's job in a "very constructive way", the final decision would be taken only at the next formal board meeting.

TNK-BP has been run since May by interim chief executive Mikhail Fridman, one of the four billionaires.

The appointment of Fridman, ranked Russia's fourth-richest businessman by Forbes, was perceived as the final step by BP in ceding management control at the firm.

The last permanent head of the company, Robert Dudley, now a BP board member, left Russia with a number of other expatriate workers at the height of the shareholder dispute last year.

When Fridman was appointed in May, TNK-BP said it hoped to select a new chief executive by the end of this year and hired two young executives to vie for the role.

BP said it wanted to see in this role, Pavel Skitovich, who ran gold miner Polyus Gold (PLZL.MM) for five months in 2007 and worked as a Soviet diplomat in Uganda early in his career.

The tycoons proposed Barsky, a 35-year-old former head of smaller oil firm West Siberian Resources. Sources close to TNK-BP said on Friday it was not clear what role Skitovich would play in the company.

Sources close to BP and the Russian tycoons have said that Fridman's ally and another key TNK-BP shareholder, Executive Director German Khan, is the real power behind day-to-day operations at the company. [ID:nL6706134] (Additional reporting by Michael Stott; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Greg Mahlich)