Oil is seen in the water off a beach on Grand Isle, Louisiana in June. Oil giant BP has increased to $40 bln the amount it wants to raise from an asset sale programme in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a news report said.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Spencer Platt)
LONDON (AFP) - Oil giant BP has increased to nearly 25 billion pounds the amount it wants to raise from an asset sale programme in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
The 25 billion figure is an increase from the previous goal of around 20 billion pounds.
The target figure reportedly includes the planned sale of its 13- billion-pound, 26 percent stake in North America's largest oil field, Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, which is on the market.
"They're being very clear. For the right price, they'll sell," an unidentified source told the Sunday Times.
The paper also said BP was in talks to dispose of up to six billion pounds of international assets to TNK-BP, its Russian joint venture.
BP has spent over five billion pounds battling the huge Gulf of Mexico spill that followed an explosion on an oil rig off the Louisiana coast in April.
The British-based group has forecast that the environmental disaster will cost it a total of more than 20 billion pounds.
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