NEW YORK-BP is in talks to sell some of its Gulf of Mex­i­co oil fields to Plains Ex­plo­ration and Pro­duc­tion Com­pa­ny for rough­ly US$7 bil­lion, a per­son fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter said on Sun­day, as the Unit­ed King­dom oil firm looks to raise mon­ey to pay for dam­ages from the 2010 oil spill. The amount BP will have to pay in dam­ages for the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil spill-Amer­i­ca's worst ever-is still in dis­pute. But last month the US Jus­tice De­part­ment ac­cused the com­pa­ny of gross neg­li­gence and wil­ful mis­con­duct over the spill, a po­si­tion that could lead to near­ly US$21 bil­lion in civ­il dam­ages if a fed­er­al judge agrees.

BP said in May that it was look­ing to sell a num­ber of ma­ture fields in the Gulf of Mex­i­co, in­clud­ing its po­si­tions in the Mar­lin, Horn Moun­tain, Hol­stein, Ram Pow­ell and Di­ana Hoover fields. A deal would be trans­for­ma­tion­al for Hous­ton-based in­de­pen­dent oil ex­plor­er and pro­duc­er, Plains, which had a mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of US$5.2 bil­lion as of Fri­day. The com­pa­ny al­ready has as­sets in the Gulf, as well as in Cal­i­for­nia, Texas, Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mex­i­co. Like many oth­er in­de­pen­dent US?oil and gas com­pa­nies, Plains has been work­ing to build up its oil as­sets, as the price for US nat­ur­al gas has been in a pro­longed slump. It had pre­vi­ous­ly es­ti­mat­ed that about 57 to 60 per cent of its 2012 pro­duc­tion would be oil. The Wall Street Jour­nal, which ear­li­er re­port­ed news of the talks, said a deal could be an­nounced as soon as this week. (Reuters)