BP is expected to announce record quarterly profits of more than £3.5 billion today, but the announcement is likely to be overshadowed by the battle for control of TNK-BP, the oil group's Russian joint venture.

City analysts predict that BP will report clean net profits, which strips out exceptional items, of about $7.6 billion (£3.8 billion) for the three months to June 30 - an increase of 38 per cent on $5.5 billion a year ago. The result is expected to exceed BP's previous quarterly record of $6.6 billion set during the preceding quarter.

Rising oil prices, which touched a record high of $147 a barrel a few days after the end of the reporting period, and a recovery in BP's refining business are likely to be the two main drivers of growth.

However, BP's announcement is expected to be dominated by questions over the fate of TNK-BP after Robert Dudley, the chief executive, decided to leave Moscow on Thursday to run the company from an unspecified location outside Russia. Mr Dudley's exit followed visa problems and months of harassment, apparently orchestrated by BP's partners in TNK-BP, who are seeking to win management control of the group.

Yesterday, Russian immigration officials indicated that they would grant a visa to Tim Summers, TNK-BP's chief operating officer and Mr Dudley's most senior deputy left in Russia, allowing him to stay in the country.

“There are no problems. We'll give him his visa tomorrow,” Konstantin Poltoranin, spokesman for the Federal Migration Service, said. “As far as the rest of the employees go, we are working on it.”

TNK-BP is central to BP's efforts to remain one of the world's biggest international oil companies. The venture, Russia's third-largest oil producer, pumps 1.4 million barrels of oil per day and last year earned profits of $5 billion on sales of $38 billion. BP's share of production represents a quarter of its total output. The company also supplies a third of BP's total reserves at a time when new reserves of oil are becoming increasingly difficult to find.

The oil group's bumper profits are likely to provoke a fresh outcry from consumer and business groups as motorists continue to struggle with near-record petrol prices, despite a slight easing in the global price of crude in recent weeks and the Government's decision to postpone a 2p rise in fuel duty.

Yesterday, the AA accused oil companies, including BP, of failing to pass on recent wholesale price falls to motorists. It said that a 12 per cent fall in the price of fuel entering the UK in the past two weeks had not yet been reflected in prices paid on station forecourts. They remain close to record highs of 119.7p for petrol and 133.25p for diesel.

“We don't want to see a repetition of 2005 post-Katrina,” the AA said. “Then the UK was told wholesale petrol prices had fallen 4p per litre but it took nearly three months for that to work its way through to the pumps.”

Kate Gibbs, of the Road Hauliers' Association, said it was a disgrace that oil companies were earning such huge profits while haulage companies were going out of business because of the rising price of fuel.

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