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The following is a press release from Standard & Poor's: NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) July 21, 2010--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today its ratings and outlook on exploration and production (E&P) company Apache Corp. (A-/Stable/A-2) remain unchanged following Apache's announcement of its agreement to acquire assets in the Permian Basin, Canada, and Egypt from BP PLC (A/Watch Neg/A-1) for $7 billion. The assets are complementary to Apache's existing E&P efforts and would increase Apache's existing reserves by 385 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and production by over 80,000 boe per day. The three transactions are subject to various regulatory approvals and are expected to close by the end of 2010. Under the terms of the agreement, Apache will advance $5 billion of the purchase consideration to BP PLC on July 30, 2010. The remaining $2 billion of purchase consideration will be funded as the individual transactions close. The company has announced its intent to issue $1.8 billion of common stock (21 million shares) and $1.1 billion of mandatory convertible preferred stock. The remaining consideration for the transaction is likely to come from a combination of existing cash balances and incremental short-term debt. Given the financing structure, we believe that Apache's credit protection measures would remain at levels appropriate for the rating, specifically funds from operations to adjusted debt in excess of 50% under our long-term commodity price assumptions. Primary Credit Analyst: Lawrence Wilkinson, New York (1) 212-438-1882; lawrence_wilkinson@standardandpoors.com Secondary Credit Analyst: Patrick Jeffrey, CFA, New York (1) 212-438-7840; pat_jeffrey@standardandpoors.com No content (including ratings, credit-related analyses and data, model, software or other application or output therefrom) or any part thereof (Content) may be modified, reverse engineered, reproduced or distributed in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of S&P. The Content shall not be used for any unlawful or unauthorized purposes. S&P, its affiliates, and any third-party providers, as well as their directors, officers, shareholders, employees or agents (collectively S&P Parties) do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or availability of the Content. 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