Lord Browne’s US fund is mulling a bid for auctioned BP assets
FORMER BP chief Lord Browne is considering buying businesses from his former firm as BP divests assets to raise cash for its US lawsuit.
Riverstone, the US private equity house at which Browne is now a partner, is reportedly considering bids for BP businesses being auctioned.
Assets include its Canadian natural gas liquids processing facilities worth $2bn (£1.3bn), recently put up for sale.
The move would mark a return to managing assets that Browne managed during his tenure at BP’s helm, Sky News reported yesterday. Browne is credited with building BP into a global energy player before handing it over to Tony Hayward in 2007.
There is no guarantee that Riverstone will make any formal bids, the report said.
The assets have been put up for sale to raise an estimated $30bn for use as BP fights a $21bn US government lawsuit resulting from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill this year. BP announced last week that it will sell oil-producing blocks in Pakistan to a Hong Kong investor, UEG, for $775m, in a move that will take its total raised to $22bn.
New York-based Riverstone, which specialises in energy investments, has also reportedly been mulling a bid for Shell-owned oil fields in Nigeria.