BILLION-DOLLAR SALES BY BP BP began a series of divestitures in 2010 to pay for its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite paying out at least $38 billion for the spill, the British energy giant remains committed to high-risk exploration in deepwater fields. From Australia to Texas, the company has been selling older, smaller assets considered to be low-growth potential.
On Monday, BP agreed to sell its TNK-BP, a joint venture in Russia, for $55 billion to Rosneft, a state-owned energy company. That sale brought the value of BP's divestments since the spill to more than $95 billion.
The United States filed the first criminal charges in the spill case in April. If the disaster is found to be the result of gross negligence, the fines for BP would rise substantially.
| DATE | ASSETS | ACQUIROR | VALUE (in billions) |
| * Remaining 50 stake. ** 50 percent stake. Source: Thomson Reuters | |||
| Oct. 22, 2012 | TNK-BP * | Rosneft | $28.0 |
| Oct. 22, 2012 | TNK-BP ** | Rosneft | 26.5 |
| Sept. 10, 2012 | Oil fields in Gulf of Mexico | Plains Exploration & Production | 5.5 |
| July 20, 2010 | Assets in Canada | Apache | 3.3 |
| July 20, 2010 | Assets in U.S. and Egypt | Apache | 3.1 |
| Oct. 8, 2012 | Refinery in Texas City, Texas | Marathon Petroleum | 2.5 |
| Aug. 13, 2012 | Refinery in Carson, Calif. | Tesoro | 2.5 |
| May 1, 2012 | Woodside in Australia | Mitsui | 2.5 |
| Oct. 18, 2010 | TNK-BP | 1.8 | |
| Aug. 3, 2010 | Assets in Colombia | Investor group | 1.8 |
| Dec. 1, 2011 | Gas unit in Canada | Plains Midstream | 1.7 |
| Feb. 27, 2012 | Assets in Kansas | Lin Energy | 1.2 |
| June 25, 2012 | Property in Wyoming | Lin Energy | 1.0 |
TOP PUBLICLY TRADED OIL COMPANIES If Rosneft buys out both BP and the handful of Russian billionaires who control the other half of TNK-BP, Rosneft will become one of the world's largest publicly traded oil companies by market capitalization.
