BP Puts Vietnam, Pakistan Assets Up for Sale to Raise Cash for Oil Spill

BP Plc, seeking cash to help pay for the worst-ever U.S. oil spill, informed the governments of Vietnam and Pakistan that it put its production assets in the countries up for sale.

In Vietnam, BP plans to sell interests in an offshore natural gas production field, a pipeline and a power generator, said David Nicholas, a London-based spokesman at the company. In Pakistan, it plans to sell oil and gas production fields, including deep-water sites, the largest offshore acreage given to any single explorer in the country, Nicholas said.

BP, Europe’s largest oil producer by volume, last week agreed to sell oil and gas fields in the U.S., Canada and Egypt to Houston-based Apache Corp. for $7 billion. The company plans to sell up to $30 billion of assets to raise cash to meet the costs of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The sales “will primarily come from our portfolio of upstream assets around the world, which will be of more value to others,” Nicholas said today in a phone interview. He declined to comment on whether the company plans to sell its Venezuelan assets to Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

Oil & Natural Gas Corp., India’s biggest energy explorer, and Oil India Ltd. this month indicated they want to bid together with Vietnam Oil & Gas Group for BP’s assets in Vietnam. ONGC is BP’s partner in the Vietnamese offshore block, which is being sold, Nicholas said. The Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam is valued at $1.3 billion, BP said on its website.

BP hired HSBC Holdings Plc to sell its stake in the field, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified because the details are private.

Separately, Nicholas declined to comment on a Wirtschaftswoche magazine report that BP may sell Aral, its German fuel retail network.

Nicholas also declined to comment on reports that BP is in talks with Bridas Corp. about the possible sale of its 60 percent stake in the companies’ joint venture, Pan American Energy LLC, which is Argentina’s second-largest oil producer.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

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