In this May 27, 2010 file photo, Coast Guard Adm Thad Allen, National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response, attends a meeting with Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph regarding clean-up efforts on Fourchon Beach, in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Port Fourchon, La. (Photo: AP)

LONDON, England

BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley faces a tough audience when he stands up at the oil company’s annual shareholder meeting on Thursday — just shy of the anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico well blowout that kicked off the biggest oil spill in US history.

Hundreds of shareholders are expected to descend on the vast ExCel centre in London to publicly air their grievances about a year in which BP PLC lost a quarter of its market value, or some £34 billion (US$55 billion).

Compounding the headache for Dudley is the fact that the gathering coincides with the deadline for BP to wrap up an US$8 billion share swap with Russia’s OAO Rosneft in the face of seemingly insurmountable legal challenges from its partners in Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

Institutional investors will be pressing to find out how the Rosneft deal has gone wrong, while others are planning to lodge protest votes against the bonuses paid out to some key executives as they demand more transparency on the company’s plans to both improve safety and get back on track.

It’s all a far cry from last year’s event, when the company was powering ahead and there were only minor protests against executive pay packets and opposition from environmental groups to BP’s investment in the Canadian tar sands.

The Macondo well blowout in the Gulf just five days later on April 20 changed all that. The explosion killed 11 workers and began the spill that has so far cost BP some US$40 billion — and former CEO Tony Hayward his job.

Dudley, the first American to lead the British oil company since taking over in October, will instead be facing the music.

Top of the agenda is expected to be the shambolic Rosneft deal.

BP announced the share swap with state-backed Rosneft to explore for oil and gas off the Russian Arctic continental shelf with much fanfare in January.

The deal was to cement BP’s move forward from the Gulf spill, taking attention away from its faltering US business to opportunities elsewhere in the world.

But it quickly ran aground in the face of opposition from BP’s existing Russian partners in its TNK-BP joint venture. That quartet of Russian billionaires last week won a legal block to the deal, leaving it hanging by a thread ahead of the Thursday deadline set by Rosneft.

BP has sought an extension to that deadline as it seeks an 11th hour compromise.

However, a peace offering was looking increasingly unlikely on Tuesday as a source close to TNK-BP’s management said the company would seek up to US$10 billion in damages from BP. The source, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the funds would be compensation for BP’s violation of the shareholder agreement and failing to inform TNK-BP of an opportunity to explore the Russian sector of the Arctic.

Disgruntled institutional investors have so far dealt with the issue largely behind closed doors, but may use Thursday’s meeting to make a more public statement.

Euan Stirling, investment director at Standard Life, told the BBC that the Rosneft deal was “another fine mess for BP.”

Other investors are planning to vote against the re-election of the chairman and key executives and the acceptance of the annual report.

Both Pirc, the investor advice service, and the Association of British Insurers have issued warnings about excessive pay packages.

While Dudley has waived his bonus this year, two other executives — Iain Conn, the company’s head of refining and Chief Financial Officer Byron Grote — are receiving 310,500 pounds (US$505,000) and US$621,000 respectively for their performances not related to the oil spill.

Hayward has also grabbed headlines with an £11 million (US$17.9 million) pension pot, £1 million (US$1.6 million) payoff and some £8 million (US$13 million) in share options after a series of public gaffes.

ABI spokesman Erfan Hussein said the group wanted to “highlight to shareholders that there are a number of aspects of BP’s remuneration report which they will need to consider and make a careful judgement on ahead of the vote.”

A coalition of institutional investors led by the US Christian Brothers Investment Services, representing US$12 billion in assets and one million shares in BP, is also unhappy with executive pay — and the company’s lack of transparency over safety issues.

The group will vote against the annual report, which it says does not provide sufficient detail on how the company has strengthened safety and risk management.

“While we have been encouraged by BP’s recent willingness to meet with a broad range of shareholders, we do not think the annual report demonstrates what BP is doing to address the issues that have dominated headlines in regards to the oil spill,” said Julie Tanner, Assistant Director of Socially Responsible Investing at CBIS. “It does little to provide investors with critical information or confidence that risk has been mitigated and that board oversight has been strengthened.”

The UK Church Investors Group, which holds 200 million pounds of BP shares, is voting against the re-election of the chair of the board’s safety committee and the company’s remuneration report.