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BP sells North Sea assets to Abu Dhabi

LONDON, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- British energy company BP announced it sold parts of its North Sea oil and natural gas assets to a company in Abu Dhabi for more than $1 billion.

BP said it sold interests in a number of central North Sea assets to state-controlled Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., known also as TAQA, for $1.05 billion plus future payments the British supermajor said would exceed $250 million, depending on oil price and production.

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"The assets included in the sale are BP's interests in the BP-operated Maclure, Harding and Devenick fields and non-operated interests in the Brae complex of fields and the Braemar field," the company stated.

In early November, BP was ordered to pay more than $250 million in damages for a 5,700-barrel oil spill in Alaska in 2006. Later, the company agreed to pay $4 billion for charges related to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy in 2010, the worst accidental offshore spill in the history of the energy industry.

BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said the TAQA sale is "in line with BP's strategy to focus on a smaller number of higher-value assets with long-term growth potential and to continue the simplification of our portfolio with a further reduction of operated infrastructure and wells."

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BP announced net income in the third quarter of 2012 reached $5.4 billion, up from the $5 billion reported for last year.

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