The sale, to Hong Kong-listed oil and gas producer MIE Holdings Corp, The Can-China Global Resource Fund and Swiss commodity trading firm Mercuria, is part of Centrica's drive to focus its oil and gas exploration and production activity to Europe.

Analysts at Jefferies, who rate Centrica as "underperform", said the price tag was in line with their estimate of 267 million pounds.

The deal, subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second half of 2017.

Centrica's share of the proceeds will be used to reduce debt as it aims to lower its net debt to 2.5-3 billion pounds by the end of this year.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely)

Stocks treated in this article : MIE Holdings Corp, Centrica