BP is relaunching the sale of its interests in a number of North Sea oil fields, according to Reuters, after the collapse of its deal with Premier Oil last year.
The energy giant had agreed to sell its stake in the Andrew Area asset and in the Shell-operated Shearwater hub to Premier, initially for £475million but later reduced to just £210m to help the debt-ridden firm complete the acquisition.
However, the announcement in October that Chrysaor would be taking over Premier Oil saw the BP arrangement fall through.
BP has now restarted the sales process according to the news agency, citing two sources, with the firm asking interested parties to send in bids with no deadline.
Rather than the initial £475million, BP is unlikely to fetch more than $80million (£59.3m) for the sale of the North Sea assets, the report said, following last year’s collapse in oil prices.
BP, who has ambitions to divest $25billion in assets by 2025 as part of its net zero push, declined to comment.
Following the Chrysaor merger news, Premier Oil boss Tony Durrant said he expected “further talks” to take place between the combined entity and BP.
Chrysaor didn’t comment at the time, while BP said it was “considering its options”.
Westwood Global said in October it expects the new firm, to be known as Harbour Energy, will continue its run of acquisitions in order to arrest the declining production profile from some of its older assets.
Another large sale up for grabs currently is ExxonMobil’s North Sea portfolio.
Bloomberg reported last month that private equity firm HitecVision was emerging as the frontrunner.
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