NEW YORK — BP PLC, the company battling a record oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, agreed to sell assets in North America and Egypt to Apache Corp. for $7 billion as part of its plan to raise cash to fund liabilities.
The deals with Apache include BP’s Permian Basin holdings in Texas and Southeast New Mexico as well as gas properties in Western Canada, London-based BP said yesterday. BP also agreed to sell Western Desert business concessions and an East Badr El-din exploration concession in Egypt.
The announcement comes after BP said it plans to sell some $10 billion of assets over 12 months to help pay for damages related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, caused by the explosion of its Macondo well on April 20. BP said it expects the deals to be closed in the third quarter.
“I think it should help BP in terms of increasing investor confidence that they’ll have the liquidity to pay for the Macondo incident without taking the company down,’’ said Philip Weiss, an analyst at Argus Research in New York who has a “hold’’ rating on BP’s American depositary receipts and owns about 150 of them.
Apache fell 2.8 percent to $88.28 at 6:12 p.m., while BP’s American depositary receipts rose 1.2 percent to $35.63.
BP said Apache will pay a deposit of $5 billion in cash on July 30. The total price of $7 billion includes $3.1 billion for the Permian properties, $3.25 billion for assets in Canada, and $650 million for the Egyptian assets, according to BP’s statement.
Apache, the largest US oil company by market value among companies that don’t own refineries or chemical plants, said it will finance the acquisitions with debt and equity securities as well as cash on hand.
The company said it received a $5 billion bridge loan to backstop financing requirements and also announced plans to offer 21 million shares of common stock and start an offering of $1.1 billion of mandatory convertible preferred stock.
Apache said net production from the acquired properties was about 83,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in the first half of this year. The deals add 2.4 million net acres to the company’s portfolio.
Apache chief executive Steven Farris said it was a “rare opportunity to acquire legacy positions from a major oil company.’’
Over the past few weeks, talks between BP and Apache centered on a sale of part of BP’s stake in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay field, along with the other assets, said three people familiar with the matter.
But talks over the Prudhoe Bay stake fell apart, these people said.
