Premier mulls $500m bid for BP’s Pakistan assets

UK-based explorer Premier Oil mulls over $500 million bid for British Petroleum’s gas production business in Pakistan.

LONDON: UK-based explorer Premier Oil is mulling over a $500 million bid for British Petroleum’s (BP) gas production business in Pakistan, The Times newspaper said on Tuesday.

Citing people familiar with the talks, the newspaper said it was not certain whether Premier or Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund which has also expressed an interest in the assets, will participate in the bidding next month.

British Petroleum’s upstream assets in Pakistan comprise a number of production fields and exploration blocks in Sindh.

The fields are worth $690 million, UBS analysts estimated in a research note in July.

Premier, which already has assets in Pakistan, was not immediately reachable for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2010.