Dudley Will Speed Asset Sales After Apache Deal Gets Premium

Robert Dudley, appointed as BP Plc chief executive officer today, will sell as much as $30 billion of assets over the next 18 months after the company got a 58 percent premium for fields bought by Apache Corp.

BP plans to dispose of between $25 billion and $30 billion, mainly in oil and gas production, “worth more to other companies than to BP,” the company said in a statement today after it reported a record $17.2 billion second-quarter loss because of the costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.