British Petroleum has begun to sell off its mature oil fields in Egypt to shift its focus to developing the country’s large natural gas reserves, according to a new report by Bloomberg.
The Gulf of Suez assets have been available to purchase for a few months, it has now been disclosed, and British Petroleum is hoping to raise roughly $1 billion from a deal, sources close to the matter said.
BP has an overall goal to sell between $2 billion and $3 billion in assets this year, which is a less ambitious liquidation goal than last year when it sold $4.3 billion in properties, leases, and projects. The company has been on the road to recovery since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
Last year, British Petroleum CEO Bob Dudley said he saw 2017 as a recovery year after a period of crisis that devastated the company’s bottom line, according to a report by The Financial Times in December.
“This year has felt like a turning point,” says Dudley. “We’re never going to feel complacent. But it feels like we are now dealing with the same problems that everyone else has.”
BP brought a total of seven oil and gas production projects online in 2017, almost breaking the company’s record for maximum inaugurations in a year. The multinational oil major is also trying to increase the share of its gas production as part of its effort to become friendlier to the environment, while still producing fuels that will power civilization.
“There will be a need for oil well into the second half of the century,” Dudley says. “There are going to be 2bn more people in the world by 2035...?Every kind of energy is going to be needed.”
By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com
