Talk of BP seeking Arab cash as Gulf disaster bill tops $3bn

BP today said that it has now spent more than $3 billion (£1.98 billion) on the clean up, plugging attempts and compensation for the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

The news came amid growing speculation that the oil giant is looking to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East for a Barclays-style fund raising.

Newspapers in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait both reported that their respective governments were looking both at buying assets from BP or subscribing for new shares.

One said that there was talk of selling a 10% stake in the company for a total of around £6 billion.

Shares in BP rose 8p to 330p — a rise of almost 10% in the last week.

BP said that it had now spent a total of $3.12 billion since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 which killed 11 workers.

This includes more than 47,000 compensation pay-outs totalling almost $147,000. It has so far received 95,000 claims for compensation.

Last month, the company agreed to put $20 billion into an escrow account to cover potential liabilities from the oil spill.

The firm said that it had collected or flared 25,198 barrels of oil on Saturday and 12,500 barrels in the first half of Sunday.

That takes the total amount of oil collected or flared to almost 600,000 barrels.

BP refused to comment on speculation that it is looking to raise cash through a share issue.

Kuwait Investment Office currently owns a 1.75% stake in BP. It originally came to the rescue of the Thatcher Government 13 years ago when a sell-off of the remaining state stake in BP went disastrously wrong.

The KIO ended up with a 21.7% stake in BP, but was then controversially barred from making a full-scale takeover bid for the company.

Any investment from the Middle East is unlikely to come before the fates of BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and chief executive Tony Hayward have been decided.

Abu Dhabi and Qatar were key players in helping Barclays avoid taking a Government bail-out two years ago.

The two Middle East countries stumped up a total of £5.7 billion for new Barclays shares and paper.

Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour made a profit of £1.45 billion when he sold out of Barclays earlier this year.