London, May 2, 2026, 16:01 BST
- BP is weighing whether to offload some or all of its North Sea assets in the UK.
- Bloomberg puts the potential haul from a full divestment at roughly £2 billion.
- UK North Sea policy is back in the spotlight, with BP aiming to trim its debt.
BP PLC is weighing whether to offload part or all of its UK North Sea business, Bloomberg News reported Friday. The potential sale—valued around £2 billion ($2.7 billion)—would mark a sharp pullback for the British oil giant in a region where it has deep roots. According to the report, BP’s review spans its upstream operations: fields, wells, platforms, the lot. There’s still no guarantee the process results in a sale.
Timing is key here. Meg O’Neill stepped in as BP’s chief executive in April, just as the company faced calls to reduce its debt load and channel more capital into oil and gas projects with straightforward returns. BP has pressed pause on share buybacks—those are purchases of its own shares—and net debt finished the first quarter at $25.3 billion.
North Sea assets are a tougher sell in global portfolios these days, thanks to the UK policy environment. The Energy Profits Levy—London’s windfall tax—now sits at 38%, pushing total headline taxes on upstream oil and gas operations up to 78%, according to the government. The measure is scheduled to run through March 31, 2030, unless prices trigger an early phase-out.
BP ended Friday down a little more than 2%, with the FTSE 100 slipping 0.1%. BP gave no immediate comment to Reuters, which noted it was unable to confirm the Bloomberg story.
Clair puts heft behind the review. BP continues to own 45% of the field—the largest oilfield on the UK Continental Shelf—and stands out as one of the last major oil companies still operating at scale in the UK North Sea. Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies have either sold, divested, or reshaped their stakes there.
For now, earnings at BP are on the front foot. Underlying replacement-cost profit—BP’s preferred metric for stripping out inventory price noise—jumped to $3.20 billion in the first quarter, up from $1.38 billion a year ago. The company credited “exceptional” oil trading for the surge. AJ Bell
O’Neill didn’t mince words about the reset. During BP’s results presentation, she made it clear: her top agenda is “tight focus on safety, operational performance, and capital discipline.” As for investment, it’s going straight to the “highest returning assets,” she said. Investing
BP isn’t walking away from oil and gas, just shifting its investment focus. The company said Wednesday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuela, setting the stage for work on the Cocuina-Manakin gas field and a look at the offshore Loran area. Shell, for its part, is also eyeing Loran.
Industry groups are sounding alarms over UK tax policy, saying it’s driving capital elsewhere. David Whitehouse, who leads Offshore Energies UK, cautioned last year that North Sea energy’s outlook hinges on investment—he said bluntly, if the levy remains, “projects will stall and jobs will vanish.” Reuters
A sale isn’t set in stone. Oil prices could move, tax rules might shift, and potential buyers are likely to push for discounts—the basin’s mature, the tax load’s heavy. BP could also hang onto certain hubs if they make sense for a leaner portfolio. That’s the uncertainty baked into the £2 billion number.
Now, the question is if this review flips over into a formal sale process—and which assets will be first out the door. BP has stuck to its net debt target of $14 billion to $18 billion by the end of 2027, and it’s penciling in $9 billion to $10 billion in sale proceeds for 2026. That puts the North Sea review squarely in the spotlight as a measure of whether O’Neill can translate portfolio talk into hard cash.
