By Daniel Fineren
LONDON (Reuters) - BP PLC plans to sell all its stakes in gas fields it operates in the southern North Sea, including the pipeline network and the Dimlington receiving terminal, by the end of 2011, the company said on Tuesday.
The UK energy giant also plans to sell the Wytch Farm onshore oilfield in Dorset -- which BP says is the largest in western Europe -- to focus investment on central and northern parts of the UK North Sea and Norway.
"The North Sea is a significant business for BP and we are currently investing here at the highest level for more than ten years, with four major new field development projects underway in the UK and two in Norway," Trevor Garlick, Regional President, BP North Sea said.
"The assets we intend to divest are of high value but find it difficult to compete for capital and resource within our North Sea portfolio."
BP plans to sell up to $30 billion of non-core assets around the world to pay for its devastating oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico in early 2010.
BP said it hopes to complete the UK asset sales around the end of 2011, subject to regulatory approval.
The stakes on sale are as follows:
Nine BP-operated Cleeton stream fields, with stakes ranging from 53.50-100 percent; four 100-percent stakes in the West Sole fields; an 83.65-percent stake in the Amethyst field; and BP's 100-percent shares of related infrastructure, including the Cleeton Field, the Southern North Sea gas Pipeline System (SNSPS) and the Dimlington gas terminal
It also plans to sell its 67.81 percent stake in Wytch Farm which, with an estimated 500 million barrels of recoverable oil, is western Europe's biggest onshore oil field, according to the company's website.
