BP launches $3B sale of U.S. assets to fund BHP deal

UK oil supermajor BP Plc has initiated the sale of U.S. oil and gas onshore assets that could raise more than $3 billion to help pay for other U.S. assets it bought in October from BHP, industry and banking sources told Reuters.

The sale proceeds will partially fund the $10.5 billion acquisition of BHP’s onshore assets primarily found in Texas and Louisiana.

The supermajor looks to focus on production from its holdings in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale play, to keep pace with rivals ExxonMobil and Chevron.

BP’s U.S. onshore business, which has been rebranded as BPX, sent out information packages last week on the assets it was selling and its representatives held a meeting in New York with the management teams of potential buyers, the sources told Reuters.

This follows a series of informal talks the company held with private equity firms since the end of November aimed at gauging interest in the assets, two of the sources told Reuters.

Interested parties include U.S. buyout funds Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus, one of the sources told Reuters.

BP declined to comment. Carlyle and Warburg Pincus were not immediately available for comment.

BP is offering seven packages, all of them including shale assets it held before the BHP deal, two of the sources said.

Those include fields in the San Juan Basin, which straddles the Colorado-New Mexico border; the Cotton Valley field in East Texas; the Arkoma and Anadarko basins in Oklahoma; and the Wamsutter Basin in Wyoming.