Divestment: BHP agrees to sell gas business
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2015. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID
BHP Billiton has agreed to sell its Pakistan gas business to a local firm, a unit of the Hashoo Group, for an undisclosed sum, the global miner said on Monday.
“The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2015,” BHP said in an emailed statement.
BHP, operator of the Zamzama gas field and processing plants, has been looking to sell its 38.5% stake for some time, as it works to simplify its petroleum business to focus on the United States, Australia and Trinidad and Tobago.
It sold its Liverpool Bay oil and gas fields off the Irish Sea in 2013 and has been looking to sell its Algerian assets.
Gas and condensate from Zamzama are sold within Pakistan. The other owners of the field are Italy’s ENI SpA, Premier Oil, Kuwait’s Kufpec and the Pakistan government.
BHP, headquartered in Melbourne and listed on stock exchanges in Australia, London and New York, has been working in the upstream petroleum sector of Pakistan since 1995.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 17th, 2015.