BP has put a $10 million co-investment project for the Kremlin-led research and development hub on ice following a bitter conflict with local partners in its Russian joint venture, a report said yesterday.

BP and Skolkovo Fund, which is headed by billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and implements the Kremlin’s plan to build a research and development hub outside Moscow, had planned to co-invest in a three-year $10.5 million oil research project, Kommersant said, citing a source close to the talks. The signing of the agreement, which would also include Russia’s Boreskov Institute of Catalysis and Imperial College London, was to have taken place during British Prime Minister David Cameron’s landmark visit to Moscow earlier this month but BP pulled out at the last minute, the newspaper said.

The move comes after BP’s deal with Russian state-controlled oil firm Rosneft to form a joint venture for Arctic exploration collapsed after Russian shareholders in its Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, filed a complaint that the deal infringed their own shareholder pact with the British firm.