Rosneft , the Russian state-owned energy company, has sought to mitigate the heavy blows of falling crude oil prices and the volatile rouble by changing its accounting systems to record foreign currency fluctuations when they materialise, rather than every quarter. The company has yet to announce its fourth-quarter results but the move, which was backdated to October 1 2014, has benefited BP , which owns 19.75 per cent of the Russian company. Analysts were expecting BP to suffer losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings and dividends but on Tuesday it reported a $470m fourth-quarter profit from its stake in Rosneft. Rosneft said the change was approved by the board’s audit committee “with the involvement of the independent auditor Ernst & Young”, but it is not clear if EY actually approved it. The “increased foreign exchange volatility of the Russian rouble . . . can distort the effect of the actual […]