The Real Reason BP Is Retreating From the North Sea

BP is still considering a sale of all or part of its UK upstream portfolio, which could fetch around £2 billion ($2.7 billion), though talks of a sale to Ithaca Energy fell through earlier this month, according to reports by Bloomberg and the Financial Times. We think the information is credible. A sale would fit the group’s strategic direction, and the company is an outlier in the UK, where other majors have either sold down or formed joint ventures. At the same time, BP has been pushing aggressively on the exploration front since…