british blood pressure Oil giant Castrol has agreed to sell a 65% stake in its lubricants business to Stonepeak for $6 billion, months after the oil giant was looking for a buyer for the division.
The deal comes as the company looks to begin a strategic reset that includes a U-turn on its green strategy and $20 billion in asset sales by the end of 2027. The sale values Castrol at $10.1 billion.
Energy companies including India’s Reliance Industries and Saudi oil giant Aramco, as well as private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Lone Star Funds, were all touted as suitors for BP’s Castrol unit in May, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
“This allows us to complete or announce more than half of our targeted $20 billion divestiture program and use the proceeds to significantly strengthen BP’s balance sheet,” interim CEO Carol Howle said in a statement.
“This sale marks an important milestone in the continued implementation of our Reset strategy. We are reducing complexity, focusing our downstream functions on our core integrated business, and accelerating the implementation of our plan.”
BP has the option to sell the remaining 35% of Castrol’s shares after a two-year lock-up period.
Reset strategy
Castrol’s majority stake sale comes days after the oil giant announced it would appoint a new CEO, its fourth such sale in six years.
Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill will take up the role on April 1, replacing Murray Auchincloss, who was in the role for less than two years.
Stephen Isaacs, a strategic advisor at Alvine Capital who works for BP, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” last week that while BP has been “very underperforming for a long time,” a CEO change could be “the last piece of the jigsaw” to turn the company around.
“I think we’re going to see more stock sales in different parts of BP going forward,” Dan Boardman Weston, CEO of BRI Wealth Management, told CNBC on Wednesday. The shift will bring the company “back to its original focus on oil and gas exploration and development.”
The London-listed company has recently underperformed relative to its peers, reporting lower annual profits in both 2023 and 2024.
BP’s stock price opened 1.3% on Wednesday and was up slightly by 0.9% in the previous session. The company’s stock price is up about 9% so far this year after falling 15.7% in 2024. Pressure on the stock eased in 2025 following a management shake-up, a cost-cutting program and a series of oil discoveries.
