Oil giant BP Amoco Plc said on Thursday
it hoped for approval from U.S. regulators for its purchase of
Atlantic Richfield Co "within two weeks."
BP Amoco Chief Executive John Browne said in a webcast that
BP Amoco still hoped for $1 billion of cash savings from the
Arco deal after the sale of Arco Alaskan oil assets to Phillips
Petroleum Corp, and said integration of Arco should be completed
by October.
Browne also said BP Amoco plans a rolling program of share
buy-backs in the U.S. and UK markets, beginning in early May.
Browne said he could not comment further on the buy-back.
Phillips Petroleum earlier agreed to buy Arco's Alaskan oil
and natural gas reserves from BP for $7 billion, prompting the
U.S. Federal Trade Commission to adjourn its anti-trust case
against the British oil company.
Browne said BP Amoco had also agreed to sell Arco's interest
in the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage terminal and pipeline
interests to TEPPCO Partners of Houston for $355 million.
"With these major disposals we believe we have addressed
the anti-trust concerns of the FTC," Browne said.
He said BP Amoco also planned to offer $71 per share for the
18 percent of Vastar Resources Inc which Arco does not already
own. Vastar is one of the largest independent oil and gas
producers in the U.S.
Browne said cost savings from the Arco merger were now
expected to be better than when the deal was originally
announced in April 1999, when some $200 million of the $1
billion in savings had been expected to be come from Alaska.
