BP is selling 20 percent of its 60-percent stake in a gas block in Oman to Thailand’s national oil company for US$2.6 billion as part of its plan to receive US$25 billion in divestment proceeds by 2025.
After the completion of the sale of 20 percent in Oman’s Block 61 to Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP), expected this year, BP will remain operator of the block with a stake of 40 percent, the UK supermajor said in a statement on Monday.
The sale needs to be approved by the Sultanate of Oman and the other partners in the block.
“We are committed to bp’s business in Oman – this agreement allows us to remain at the heart of this world-class development while also making important progress in our global divestment programme,” BP’s chief executive officer Bernard Looney said.
BP, which has said it would boost its investment in low-carbon energy ten times to US$5 billion a year and reduce oil and gas production by 40 percent by 2030, is also targeting proceeds of a total of US$25 billion from divestments within the next five years.
The most recent major divestment was the US$5 billion sale of BP’s petrochemicals business to INEOS completed at the end of last year.
While BP is looking to transform its business to an integrated energy company from an international oil company, it continues to develop “resilient and focused hydrocarbons,” as it said in October 2020 when it announced the start of production from the Ghazeer gas field in Oman, part of Block 61.
“When we introduced our plans to reinvent bp, we were clear that to deliver them we have to perform as we transform. There are few better examples of how we are doing just that than Ghazeer,” CEO Looney said in October.
