BP Sells Texas City Refinery for $2.5 B, Stocks in London Fall

Arthi Gupta
08 Oct, 2012
New York City

BP Plc agreed to sell its Texas City refinery to Marathon Petroleum for $2.5 billion. Home builder Persimmon agreed to acquire Hillreed Homes for

[R]4:15 PM London – BP Plc agreed to sell its Texas City refinery to Marathon Petroleum for $2.5 billion. Home builder Persimmon agreed to acquire Hillreed Homes for £35.7 million.[/R]

The UK indexes slid following the weakness in European markets as ministers in the euro zone meet one more time to discuss Spain and Italy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to visit Athens tomorrow.

The EEF manufacturers’ organization in the UK said nearly 80% of companies want to see new measures to strengthen growth. However, more than one quarter of organizations surveyed still see reducing the UK’s structural deficit as a top priority.

A renewed focus on boosting economic growth should now be the government’s overwhelming priority, according to the survey released today.

In London, the benchmark index FTSE 100 declined 27.09 or 0.5% to 5,843.74 and the pound edged lower to $1.6033.

BP Agrees to Sell Texas City Refinery

BP inked an agreement to sell its Texas City, Texas refinery and a portion of its retail and logistics network in the Southeast U.S. to Marathon Petroleum Corp for $2.5 billion.

Since the beginning of 2010, BP has agreed to sell or divest $35 billion of assets to pay for the Gulf of Mexico spill and expects total divestment to increase to $38 billion by the end of 2013.

Gainers & Losers

Inmarsat plc declined 1.2% to 581 pence data and voice connectivity services provider and Cisco agreed to a satellite services alliance.

ITV plc dropped 0.4% to 92.15 pence after the commercial television network acquired Finnish producer Tarinatalo.

Michael Page International plc decreased 0.2% to 364.20 pence after the specialist recruitment consultancy estimates lower full year operating profit.

Persimmon Plc slid 0.4% to 751.50 pence after the holding company announced the acquisition of Hillreed Homes, a regional home builder operating in the south east of England for £35.7 million.

WPP Plc fell 1% to 869.50 pence after the advertising company''s wholly-owned operating network Grey acquired a majority interest in digital media agency, k102 GmbH in Germany.