Barsky makes a return with Matra Maxim Barsky, the Russian oil executive who stepped down from BP's joint venture TNK-BP last October after being groomed for the top job for two years, has re-emerged as a strategic investor in Aim-quoted explorer Matra Petroleum. Mr Barsky, who resigned from TNK-BP because of frustration over delays to his anticipated appointment as chief executive, is investing £4.6m in Matra, which has exploration and producing assets in the Volga-Urals area of Russia. Following the placing of 575m shares in Matra at 0.8p a share, the executive who many had expected to take charge of Russia's third-biggest oil producer by volume by the end of last year, will instead be a near 30 per cent shareholder and non-executive director of a company with a market capitalisation of £15m. Shares in Matra, which have lost 70 per cent of their value in the past year, fell 12 per cent to 1p on Wednesday morning following news of the placing and Mr Barsky's appointment. Mr Barsky stepped down as deputy chief executive at TNK-BP following a series of protracted disputes between BP and Alfa-Access-Renova, the vehicle of its billionaire Russian investment partners Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg and German Khan. As part of the deal with Matra, he will be incentivised through warrants exercisable at 1.3p a share to introduce "potential acquisition opportunities in other parts of Russia in the short term and potential expansion internationally in the medium term," the company said on Wednesday. Mr Barsky said he had the support of Matra's board for a joint ambition of expanding the Aim-quoted company into a "medium-sized independent player in the international market." Matra owns the Arkhangelovskoe production licence in the Orenburg region close to the border with Kazakhstan. TNK-BP is the biggest operator in the region. Before joining TNK-BP and being groomed by BP's chief executive Bob Dudley to take control of its troubled Russian co-venture, Mr Barsky was director-general of West Siberian Resources. He helped turn the previously struggling group into one of Russia's most successful independent oil companies, increasing its market capitalisation from less than $100m in 2004 to $3bn by the time it merged to create Alliance Oil in 2008. On Wednesday Mr Barsky said the most likely immediate targets for Matra would be in Russia, though he accepted he has a more difficult task than what faced him a decade ago. "It will be difficult to build Matra into another West Siberian just in Russia," he said. There are now a lot less independent assets in Russia and the tax position is quite hard on upstream exploration. He argued that opportunities existed in regions including the Volga-Urals area, where Matra has operations, and other parts of the Russian Federation that enjoyed special tax breaks. Mr Maxim will remain a shareholder and chief executive of Pechora LNG, which was formed to develop a large gas resource via a liquified natural gas facility close to the Barents Sea in the Arctic area of north-west Russia.