BP’s deals spree steps up with $1bn swoop off Africa

BP was back on the dealmaking rampage on Monday, investing nearly $1 billion (£801 million) in a huge African natural gas field that could cover Britain’s gas needs for two decades.

The agreement with US exploration company Kosmos Energy to explore waters off Mauritania and Senegal comes just days after BP signed a $2.4 billion deal to buy a stake in Abu Dhabi’s largest oilfields.

The FTSE 100 oil major is beefing up its new drilling frontiers after years of sell-offs — BP has sold assets worth $40 billion since 2010 to cover the costs of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Monday's deal sees BP acquire an almost two thirds stake in Kosmos’s exploration blocks in Mauritania and one third of its Senegal exploration blocks — together forecast to hold some 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s enough to power Britain’s needs for 20 years, plus one billion barrels of liquids.

The oil giant called its purchases “world-class deepwater gas discoveries and exploration prospectivity”.

Chief executive Bob Dudley claimed that the deal could “create a new liquified natural gas hub in Africa”.

It has been a busy month for BP’s deal-makers: as well as the Abu Dhabi stake, they have bought a 10% share of Egypt’s giant Zohr field for $375 million, acquired a 3% stake in Indonesia’s Tangguh natural gas project for $313 million, and signed off a $9 billion expansion of the “Mad Dog” oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil prices have risen since Opec and non-Opec nations agreed a historic production cut this month, with Brent crude at $55.42 a barrel today.

Rival Shell on Monday sold a 31% stake in its Japanese arm to local refiner Idemitsu Kosan for £1 billion, and further boosted its cash pile by £200 million after selling its Australian aviation business to Viva Energy.