BP crashes to £11bn loss, writes off £20.8bn for oil spill

BP confirms the company posted losses of £11bn for the second quarter of the year and will write off £20.8bn to cover the cost of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP will today unveil plans to double the amount of assets up for sale from £6bn to more than £12bn in a bid to pay for escalating claims from the Gulf oil spill.

Fields in the North Sea, considered to be the company’s family silver and Alaska could be plundered as the oil company tries to find more cash.

Fadel Gheit, oil analyst with Oppenheimer brokerage in New York, believes it makes sense. “I think BP could raise $5bn to $10bn from North Sea sales and still have something left here in the portfolio,” he said.

“It’s all about getting a clean slate,” Peter Hitchens, an analyst at Panmure Gordon & Co. in London, said before the results were published. “They’ll do the kitchen sink job to get it all out of the way at the start rather than a drip drip that will distract from future earnings.”

Meanwhile, BP returned to work on permanently plugging the Gulf oil well after a storm threat eliminated an opportunity to seal the gusher more securely by the end of July.