While Shell has been selling assets to make good on its $30billion divestment plan for 2016-18, BP has flashed the cash with a number of big investments.
Shell said yesterday that it had raised $1.65billion (£1.33billion) in asset sales, while rival oil major BP has revealed plans to invest heavily on African licences.
Shell will make $1.4billion from the sale of a 31.2% stake in refiner Showa Shell Sekiyu to Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan, the firm said yesterday.
The Anglo-Dutch firm, which is trying to divest £24billion worth of assets between 2016 and 2018 to offset the cost of its takeover of BG Group, has also agreed to sell Shell Aviation Australia to Viva Energy for $250million.
Other divestments Shell has announced in 2016 include the sale of interests in Shell Midstream Partners for $820million, while $560million came from the sale of property, plant and equipment and businesses.
Shell has also revealed a $425million deal to sell all of its interest in a number of Gulf of Mexico Green Canyon blocks to EnVen Energy Corporation, while its Danish assets were sold for $80million.
Upstream divestments completed during the third quarter included proceeds from the transfer of the right of use of the Rosetta onshore facility in Egypt, and the Maclure oil and gas field in the North Sea.
In all, Shell completed deals worth $1.7billion in the first nine months of 2016, according to the firm’s third quarter results.
The sales Shell announced yesterday were the first since the publication of the Q3 results.
BP said yesterday that it would invest nearly $1billion (£800million) to acquire a 62% working interest and operatorship of Kosmos Energy’s exploration blocks in Mauritania.
The deal also gives BP 32.49% of Kosmos’s blocks in Senegal.
And on the weekend, BP announced that it had taken a 10% interest in Abu Dhabi’s ADCO onshore oil concession.
For its part in the deal, the government of Abu Dhabi will take a 2% stake in BP, worth around $2.2billion.
At the end of November, BP revealed it would splash out $375million for 10% interest in the Shorouk offshore concession in Egypt, which contains the super-giant Zohr gas field.
The oil major also snapped-up interests in the Jock Scott and Craster prospects in the North Sea.
Recommended for you
