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BP is selling part of its stake in a major UK oil products pipeline system which supplies fuel to London's Gatwick and Heathrow airports in addition to a number of fuel storage terminals, the company said Thursday.

Europe's third-biggest oil company also said it has agreed to outsource its UK fuel transport operations to logistics group Hoyer as part of moves to cut costs and shed staff to ride out lower oil prices.

The 650 kilometer United Kingdom Oil Pipeline connects Shell's former Shell Haven and Stanlow refiners and supplies more than half the fuel needs of the UK's two biggest airports, according to UKOP's operator, the British Pipeline Agency.

The route transports 7.5 million mt/year of mixed products to major oil terminals at Buncefield and Kingsbury with spurs to Northampton and Nottingham, carrying two grades of gasoline, two grades of jet and two grades of gas oil/diesel. UKOP currently draws its products from Essar's Stanlow plant in northwest England.

A BP spokeswoman said the pipeline was co-owned by Shell, Total and Valero but declined to give details of the ownership stakes, saying the information was commercially sensitive.

STAFF CUTS

As part of the sale plans, BP said it was also seeking buyers for its fuel storage terminals at Belfast, Hamble and Northampton, as well its stake in the Kingsbury terminal, a 50-50 joint venture with Shell.

"We regularly carry out strategic reviews of our operations and these decisions ensure that we remain focused on our core activities while our customers benefit from improved efficiency," the company said.

A spokeswoman said 280 BP staff will leave its payroll as a result of the sale of ts UK fuel transport operation to Hoyer, with a risk of 30 redundancies.

In January, BP announced plans to slash more than a sixth of its global upstream workforce this year to help mitigate the pain from oil prices that hit a near 13-year low on January 20. BP also said it expected to cut as many as 3,000 jobs at its downstream division by the end of 2017.

A month later it said it would extend planned jobs cuts and keep its spending under review this year after the oil price slump forced a multi-billion dollar one-off charge in the fourth quarter of 2015.