US energy firm Apache has agreed to buy oil and gas assets in the US, Canada and Egypt from BP for $7 billion.
Apache said in a statement it had agreed to acquire all of BP's oil and gas operations, acreage and infrastructure in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico and in Egypt's Western Desert.
The deal will also include 'substantially all' of BP's natural gas business in western Alberta and British Columbia, in Canada.
BP said last month it would sell $10 billion worth of assets this year to help pay for the mounting costs linked to its massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst environmental disaster in US history.
The British energy giant BP on Monday raised the cost of its response to the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill to $3.95 billion.
Meanwhile, The Times has reported that BP chief executive Tony Hayward will step down within 10 weeks in a bid to help the British-based oil firm recover from the Gulf of Mexico spill. The paper cited 'sources close to BP'.
