BP Sells 4 Gulf of Mexico Fields to Pay For Oil Spill

Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Gulf Coast,World Maritime News on October 25, 2010

LONDON – On Monday, October 25, 2010 British Petroleum PLC (BP) announced the sale of its stake in four of its Gulf of Mexico oil and gas fields to Marubeni Oil and Gas for $650 million.

BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The latest sale of Gulf assets is part of an effort by BP to raise $30 billion to help pay for the catastrophic oil spill caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April, 2010.

BP has already raised nearly $9 billion from the sale of properties in Canada, the U.S., Colombia and Egypt and the latest sale of Gulf assets is part of that continuing effort.

The oil fields, considered by BP to be nonessential, were part of a recent acquisition of Gulf of Mexico assets from Devon Energy.

Despite the recent sale of Gulf assets, BP still has plans for more drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has leased two of its deepwater rigs from drilling rig owner Pride International Inc. One of the rigs is already located in the Gulf of Mexico the other is en route.

It is unclear what projects are in store for those rigs and they still could be moved out of the Gulf. Nevertheless, BP is commited to deepwater drilling in the Gulf because it sees that it is necessary.

BP relies on the Gulf for about 10 percent of its total oil and gas production. BP predicts that deepwater drilling is projected to grow from 7 percent currently to 9 percent of total oil supplies by the year 2020. BP also predicts that by 2030 the world could be consuming 40 percent more energy than today.

Read more at The Huffington Post.