BP in Talks to Sell Assets as Spill Costs Mount
BP is in talks with U.S. oil and gas company Apache Corp and others to sell assets worth up to $10 billion as it grapples with the costs of its spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP shares surged more than 9% in London and nearly 8% in New York on Monday, driven by the potential asset sales and hopes for a new system to capture almost all of the spewing oil that has fouled coastlines and hurt tourism and fisheries in five states.
"The political rhetoric is not as negative as it once was and that allows people to focus on all the value that lies within BP," said Kurt Wulff, president at McDep LLC, an energy investment research company in Needham, Mass.
The British energy giant is in talks with Apache and others about potential asset sales, including stakes in its Alaskan oil fields, said a source familiar with the situation. The talks are at an exploratory stage and it was not certain whether any plans would be advanced enough to be disclosed before BP announces second quarter earnings later this month, the source said.
BP and Apache declined to comment on the reports.
The asset sale talks come as scrutiny of BP ramps up with President Barack Obama's independent commission holding its first public hearings in New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday. The panel of seven engineers, environmentalists and former politicians will investigate decisions by oil companies and government regulators that may have led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Bob Graham, the panel's co-chair, said on Monday it was possible the commission could make recommendations in less than six months on the deepwater drilling moratorium that the Obama administration has sought to enforce after the disaster.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to issue a more flexible moratorium in coming days after a U.S. appeals court last week refused to halt deepwater drilling.
