Milton Financials: BP sells Southern African retail operations to Trafigura.

Nov. 15, 2010 - PRLog -- BP Plc has announced that it has agreed to sell its Southern African forecourt operations to international commodities trader Trafigura for $296 million, joining a growing number of major oil firms exiting fuel retail.

The London based company told Milton Financials sources that it has agreed to sell its interests in forecourts and supply operations in Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana to Puma Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Trafigura.

The deal is the latest step in BP’s drive to raise between $25 billion and $30 billion by the end of 2011 to pay for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the worst oil spill in U.S history.

"We provide to Trafigura access to a market that is not easy to target for a trading company...it's a way for us to get down the value chain,” Pierre Eladari, chairman of Puma Energy told Milton Financials sources, adding that the firm intends looking at additional African growth opportunities in the future as major oil firms divest.

"There are additional opportunities on the continent which we will see as a way of expanding our position in these markets. There are also opportunities in the world: in South America and also in Asia," the Puma head said.

Earlier in the year, Royal Dutch Shell sold 1,300 of its African retail sites to Vitol, the globe’s largest independent energy trader Milton Financials research indicates.

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