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Russia’s TNK-BP said Thursday that it is in talks with its 50 percent shareholder, BP Plc, on the troubled giant’s Venezuelan assets, valued at some $1 billion.

The smaller company supports BP’s plans to restructure its assets in Venezuela and is actively considering the possibility of participating in these projects, a TNK executive told Russian state-owned news agency RIA-Novosti.

“TNK-BP views this as a possibility to increase its international assets portfolio and expand its presence in Venezuela,” the spokesman said.

The executive recalled that TNK-BP already participates in oil exploration and production in Venezuela as a member of a consortium that partners with state oil company PDVSA.

“We think the realignment of BP’s assets is in the interest of both companies and also will contribute to the efficient development of Venezuela’s oil sector,” the TNK-BP representative said.

Western media report that BP, which plans to sell assets valued at $30 billion to cover the costs of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is in talks with its Russian joint venture on the possible transfer of its Venezuelan oil assets.

Those assets include BP’s minority stakes in two oil exploration and production projects being carried out jointly with PDVSA, although a BP representative characterized that information as “rumor and speculation.”

BP and Russian consortium AAR, whose largest shareholder is billionaire Mikhail Fridman, each own 50 percent stakes in TNK-BP, which was founded in 2003.

TNK-BP has production assets in western and eastern Siberia and the Volga-UralMountains region. The company also manages five refineries in Russia and the Ukraine and a network of 1,400 service stations that operate under both brands, TNK and BP.

TNK-BP, which also owns 50 percent of Russian oil and gas company Slavneft, accounts for 16 percent of Russian crude production.

The company’s proven reserves, calculated according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules, amounted to nearly 8.59 billion barrels on Dec. 31 of last year.

TNK-BP produced 70 million tons of crude last year, 2.2 percent more than in 2008, and expects that total to rise another 3 percent to 72 million tons in 2010.