OGDCL, PPL to jointly bid for BP assets

No details given on price to buy out British Petroleum’s Pakistan operations.

KARACHI: The country’s biggest listed firm, the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL), on Monday announced that it will make a joint bid for British Petroleum’s (BP) assets with Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL).

BP announced its plans to sell its upstream assets in Pakistan in July, as part of a $10 billion global asset sale aimed at raising cash to pay for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“We will bid jointly with PPL,” OGDCL spokesman Basharat Mirza said, adding the bid will be submitted later in the day. He did not give any details of the pricing.

OGDCL already has some stakes in BP’s assets. PPL is the country’s second-largest listed firm by market value. BP’s upstream assets and related operations, which it plans to divest, include nine producing and exploration onshore blocks and four offshore exploration blocks in the Arabian Sea, according to official sources.

They contribute about 14 per cent of Pakistan’s total oil production and six per cent of gas production. UBS analysts estimated the worth of BP’s fields at $690 million in a research note in July. BP’s main assets are in Badin (Sindh), comprising four concessions - Badin-I, Badin-II, Badin-IIR and Badin-III.

Of the four concessions, OGDCL has pre-emptive rights in all but Badin-I block, a source said last month. They also said then that if it wins, OGDCL will not seek direct involvement and will operate the acquired assets through a company, jointly owned by it and PPL.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2010.