The Australian Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) Group, world’s biggest miner,  has announced that it is in talks with Australia’s top independent gas producer ,Woodside Petroleum Ltd, aim at selling its oil and gas business to Australia’s Woodside Petroleum Ltd in exchange for shares, Reuters reported.

In an attempt to exit fossil fuel business, the BHP has already sold some of its coal assets.

BHP had started a strategic review of its petroleum business, including assets in the Gulf of Mexico, Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Australia.

Analysts value these assets at between $10 billion and $17 billion.

“While discussions between the parties are currently progressing, no agreement has been reached on any such transaction,” BHP said.

For BHP, the exit deal will only strip out 5% of underlying earnings.

Meanwhile, the acquisition of BHP’s petroleum assets would roughly double Woodside annual underlying earnings to approximately $8 billion.