BP asset sales in Colombia -- Europe next?

LONDON, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- British oil giant BP Tuesday said it would sell its Colombian business to raise cash for the Gulf of Mexico cleanup, as speculation was soaring across Europe what the company may divert next.

BP said Tuesday that a Colombian and a Canadian company had agreed to buy BP's Colombian business for $1.9 billion -- the first step of a larger attempt to raise $30 billion over the next 18 months to pay for the oil spill in the gulf.

"BP today announced that it has agreed to sell its oil and gas exploration, production and transportation business in Colombia to a consortium of Ecopetrol, Colombia's national oil company (51 percent), and Talisman of Canada (49 percent)," it said in a statement. "The two companies will pay BP a total of $1.9 billion in cash ... for 100 percent of the shares in BP Exploration Company (Colombia) Limited, the wholly owned BP subsidiary company that holds BP's oil and gas exploration, production and transportation interests in Colombia."

The Colombian business owns interests in five oil fields, four separate pipelines and two offshore exploration blocks. Net proved reserves total some 60 million barrels of oil equivalent, the company said.

The sale comes after the resignation of BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward in the wake of the worst-ever quarterly result for the British company, which reported a second-quarter loss of $17 billion.

Hayward, who will step down in October to make way for American Bob Dudley, said he was "delighted with the price we have achieved for these assets."

The sale comes after BP last month agreed to sell a package of assets in the United States, Canada and Egypt to Apache, which has headquarters in Texas, for $7 billion. BP also announced it's planning to get rid of assets in Pakistan and Vietnam, which analysts estimate to be worth around $1.7 billion.

Meanwhile, speculation in Europe is ripe over what assets BP might sell in Europe.

German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche last week cited unidentified investment bankers as saying that BP plans to sell its Aral chain of gas stations. BP owns 2,500 Aral gas stations in Germany that are estimated to be worth around $2.6 billion. The weekly said possible buyers include France's Total, European gas station company Avia and Russia's oil company Rosneft, although the latter has already denied being interested.

BP representatives have in the past days denied that the downstream sector would be affected by sales.