(Adds details)
LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell saidon Wednesday it had agreed to buy BG Group for 47 billionpounds ($70 billion) in a bid to close the gap on the world'sbiggest oil major, U.S. ExxonMobil.
In a joint statement, the two firms said that as part of therecommended deal Shell would pay a mix of cash and shares thatwould value each BG share at around 1,350 pence. It said thisrepresented a premium of around 52 percent to the 90-day tradingaverage.
The deal, which should generate pre-tax synergies of around2.5 billion pounds per year, will result in BG shareholdersowning around 19 percent of the combined group.
Setting out its longer-term thinking, the two groups saidShell would pay a dividend of $1.88 per ordinary share in 2015and at least the same amount in 2016.
Anglo-Dutch Shell also expects to start a share buybackprogramme in 2017 of at least $25 billion for the period 2017 to2020.
Shell said the deal would boost its proved oil and gasreserves by 25 percent, and give it better prospects in newprojects, particularly in Australia LNG and Brazil deep water.
Shell also said it planned to increase asset sales to $30billion between 2016-2018 on the back of the deal. The companysaid in January it was selling $5-6 billion worth of assets peryear.
($1 = 0.6748 pounds) (Reporting by Kate Holton; editing by Paul Sandle)
