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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (71200)	2/23/2011 3:32:55 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217588

BP to sells assets that avoided them joining the Third World. BP to sell ageing North Sea assets By Ed Crooks in New York Published: February 22 2011 17:52 \| Last updated: February 22 2011 17:52 BP plans to sell ageing oil and gas fields in Britain valued at about $1bn, including the first ever commercial discovery in the UK sector of the North Sea, as part of its strategy of focusing on higher-growth assets. It is selling its stakes in three groups of gas fields in the southern North Sea, with the pipelines and terminal used to bring the gas to shore, and its controlling interest in the Wytch Farm onshore oil field in Dorset, in southern England. The sales, which BP hopes to conclude by the end of the year, bring to $23bn the total value of disposals since last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has set a target of $30bn. The cash will go towards the cost of the spill, which BP has estimated at $41bn before tax, although the final total is still uncertain. It is also being recycled into investments that BP believes have better prospects of future growth, such as the alliance with Reliance of India announced on Monday, which will cost at least $7.2bn and possibly more than $12bn, including associated capital spending. The UK assets being sold produce about 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent, roughly 15 per cent of BP’s total UK production of about 270,000 boe/d. BP did not put a price on the assets, but they could fetch $1bn. All the fields being sold have been in production for many years, but still have life left in them. They are likely to interest smaller companies that specialise in squeezing the last drops out of mature fields, and the gas fields will also interest utilities serving the British market. Wytch Farm was the largest onshore oil field in western Europe, and its production peaked at about 110,000 barrels per day, but it is now down to 15,000 b/d. West Sole, one of the gas fields, was Britain’s commercial North Sea discovery, in 1965. BP said it was still investing in the UK, and was developing two projects in the deeper water west of the Shetlands, and two in the northern North Sea. The planned disposals fit with the strategy set by Bob Dudley, the chief executive who took over after the spill last year, of shifting out of mature assets, selling older fields and putting two of its US refineries up for sale. Irene Himona of Société Générale said BP appeared to be securing good prices for its disposals, but warned that the company might not see cash flow from its new investments in countries such as India and Russia for some time. “So BP is repositioning for the next 20 years, [and] the stockmarket looks to the next one to two, if that,” she said.