LONDON, May 15, 2026, 12:08 BST
BP PLC is considering a sale of some natural gas assets in Egypt, four people close to the matter told Reuters, in a sharper test of new Chief Executive Meg O’Neill’s plan to cut debt and focus the British oil major on higher-return projects. No final decision has been taken, the sources said, and a BP spokesperson said the company does not comment on market speculation; BP has invested more than $35 billion in Egypt over six decades and produces about 60% of the country’s gas through joint ventures and operated fields.
The timing matters. O’Neill, who took the top job on April 1, has told staff BP will start a reorganisation in June into two main units: upstream, meaning oil and gas production, and downstream, meaning refining, trading and fuel sales. BP said the aim was to build “a simpler, stronger, more valuable BP” with a clearer upstream and downstream structure. Reuters
BP has had a trading windfall, but its balance sheet is still doing the talking. The company reported first-quarter profit of $3.2 billion, more than double a year earlier, helped by oil market turmoil tied to the Iran war; net debt still rose to $25.3 billion, and BP said it planned to cut hybrid bonds — securities that mix debt and equity features — by about $4.3 billion. “We’re controlling what we can control,” O’Neill told Reuters last month, pointing to efforts to lift production elsewhere. Reuters
Egypt is not a side issue for BP. The company’s output there fell to 518 million cubic feet per day last year, down about 40% from 2024 and nearly 60% from 2023, Reuters reported. That decline sits awkwardly beside Egypt’s need for gas, after Cairo raised gas prices for several industries in May and faced a surge in import costs amid volatile global energy markets.
There is still growth on the other side of the ledger. BP said on Wednesday it bought a 40% participating interest in a production sharing agreement, or PSA, covering six oil and gas exploration blocks in Uzbekistan’s Ustyurt region; a PSA is a contract that sets how partners share costs, output and rights. “We believe Uzbekistan has significant resource potential,” Gio Cristofoli, BP’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, said. Reuters
That makes the Egypt review look less like a broad retreat from oil and gas and more like portfolio sorting. The company is selling or weighing older, lower-growth positions while adding acreage where it sees upside. It is not subtle. BP’s pivot back toward fossil fuels has replaced the greener push set under former CEO Bernard Looney.
The competitive backdrop is moving too. Shell reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $6.92 billion, helped by its refining and oil trading business, and Reuters said Shell, BP and TotalEnergies had benefited from price volatility more than U.S. rivals. For European majors, trading desks have become a cushion in a rough market, but they are not a steady source of earnings.
Eni is another relevant peer in Egypt. The Italian group said in April it made a gas and condensate discovery at the Denise W-1 well in the Temsah Concession, with preliminary estimates of about 2 trillion cubic feet of gas in place and 130 million barrels of associated condensates. Eni operates the Denise Development Lease with a 50% working interest alongside BP.
The risk is that a sale process may not clear at the value BP wants, or may leave the company thinner in a country where it has long held scale. Egypt’s gas demand, subsidy pressure and import bill also complicate the politics around any asset reshuffle. And if oil prices fall back before BP cuts leverage, the trading boom that made the first quarter look strong could fade quickly.
Oil-market uncertainty has not gone away. Standard Chartered Bank Energy Research head Emily Ashford told Rigzone that several levers had helped “contain massive price escalation” since the conflict began, but warned that effect may only be temporary; Wood Mackenzie’s Alan Gelder said a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would draw down inventories and drive prices higher. Rigzone
For BP investors, the Egypt talks are a small line in a bigger story: how fast O’Neill can raise cash, simplify the company and show that BP’s renewed oil-and-gas focus is more than a slogan. The next hard markers are the June reorganisation, further asset-sale moves and whether debt starts to fall before trading profits cool.
