BP has contacted possible buyers of oil and gas assets that it holds in the North Sea, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, but BP told the Journal that it stays committed to the UK North Sea.
"At the minute, there's been initial conversations," one of the people told the Journal, while some of the sources said that conversations did not exclude any BP asset in the North Sea. Possible buyers include private equity firms, the Journal's sources said.
BP said that it remained "committed to the U.K. North Sea, and any rumors to the contrary are simply false," the WSJ reports.
"Our aim is to sustain a material business in the region for decades to come," BP told the Journal.
BP plans to double its North Sea production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020. In addition, the UK oil major will be taking part in up to six exploration wells in the UK including the non-operated Jock Scott and Craster prospects. BP will also be drilling some 50 development wells over the next 3-4 years, the company says.
In March 2017, BP was awarded 25 blocks in the UK North Sea.
In May, BP produced its first oil from the redeveloped Quad 204 project in the west of Shetland region offshore UK. Quad 204, as well as the Clair Ridge project, are pivotal to BP's strategy to double its North Sea production by 2020.
Another major European company, Royal Dutch Shell, agreed in January this year to sell a package of its UK North Sea assets to Chrysaor for a total of up to US$3.8 billion. The package of assets consists of Shell's interests in Buzzard, Beryl, Bressay, Elgin-Franklin, J-Block, the Greater Armada cluster, Everest, Lomond and Erskine, plus a 10-percent stake in Schiehallion.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More