Thursday, November 29, 2012

BP Sells $1.1 Billion of U.K. Oil Assets to Abu Dhabi’s Taqa

BP Plc (BP/), the energy producer that’s disposing of assets in the wake of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, sold stakes in North Sea fields to Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA) for $1.1 billion.


Taqa, as the state-controlled power and oil company is known, will acquire interests in BP’s Harding, Maclure and Devenick fields, BP said in a statement today. The deal also includes non-operated interests in the Brae and Braemar fields.

The price doesn’t include future payments dependent on oil prices and production that BP expects to reach $250 million.

BP CEO Bob Dudley is shoring up the balance sheet of Europe’s second-biggest oil company as it faces a trial over civil fines in the U.S. next year.

Today’s sale brings total disposals since 2010 to about $37 billion, close to the $38 billion target.

“This transaction is in line with BP’s strategy to focus on a smaller number of higher-value assets with long-term growth potential,” Dudley said in the statement. It continues “the simplification of our portfolio with a further reduction of operated infrastructure and wells.”

Taqa, owned 75 percent by the Abu Dhabi government, holds stakes in businesses generating power or producing oil and gas in the Middle East, the North Sea, India and North America.

The company, which has natural-gas production assets in U.K. sections of the North Sea, is building the Bergermeer storage facility for that fuel in the Netherlands.

Gulf Spill

BP is trying to move on from the Gulf spill, the worst in U.S. history, after reaching settlements with victims earlier this year and a $4.5 billion deal with the U.S. government to cover criminal and financial regulatory charges.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary said this month that the company had already made arrangements for the rest of the sales needed to reach the $38 billion goal.

BP has set aside more than $40 billion to cover the costs of the spill.

Taqa has made a deposit of $632 million, BP said, and the anticipated future payments will be made over three years.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013. Jefferies Group Inc. served as a financial adviser to BP on the deal.

bloomberg.com

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