TNK-BP's Fridman says doesn't want BP shares now

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian co-owners in oil venture TNK-BP asked oil major BP (BP.L) to offer them an option to exchange their holdings in TNK-BP for BP stock but do not want to conduct a swap now, a key Russian shareholder said on Monday.

"We have never offered a swap, we had wanted an option (to swap for BP stock in the future)," Mikhail Fridman, chairman of Alfa Group, told a news conference.

He said BP's poor stock performance in the past years compared with Russian peers made such a swap unattractive. "But we would not mind having such an stock option," he added, in case it became attractive in future.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; editing by Michael Stott)