June 2, 2012. BP Plc’s decision to consider selling out of its Russian venture signals the end for John Browne’s vision of a British driller able to challenge Exxon Mobil Corp. as the world’s largest publicly-traded oil producer. At the helm from 1995 to 2007, the former chief executive officer forged a $100 billion series of deals that made BP Europe’s largest oil company. Already forced to shed more than $20 billion of assets to pay the costs of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, selling TNK-BP would see BP’s oil and gas production drop to less than 3 million barrels of a day for the first time since 1997, putting it behind Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp. Bob Dudley, the company’s first American CEO, is betting investors will back his move to create a leaner oil producer that concentrates on exploring for new reserves rather than overall production. Smaller producers have outperformed larger rivals. Shares in Exxon, France’s Total SA and ConocoPhillips as well as BP have all fallen over the past five years.