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SEOUL, July 19 (Reuters) Oil giant BP Plc. will sell its 47.41 percent stake in Samsung Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (SPC), its unlisted joint venture with South Korea's Samsung Group, both companies said.

The stake sale plan comes after BP announced in September 2005 a $399 million investment with Chinese partner Fuhua Group Ltd. to expand a Chinese plant for purified terephthalic acid (PTA), the raw material used for polyester.

BP is the world's largest producer of PTA.

Samsung Petrochemical has a total production capacity of PTA in excess of 1.8 million tonnes per year at four plants.

''BP and Samsung ... have different views of SPC's future strategy, and BP believes if it is able to achieve an appropriate price, exiting is in the best interest of SPC and its shareholders,'' Dave Miller, president of BP's global PTA business, said in a separate statement released on Tuesday.

Samsung Petrochemical hoped the oil giant was selling the stake to another global petrochemical company like BP, Samsung said in a statement.

BP said it was focusing on its new, lower-cost PTA technology, citing the groundbreaking of a new 900,000-tonne plant in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai and the 350,000-tonne expansion of a facility in Europe.

The potential stake sale is likely to deal a blow to Samsung Petrochemical's exports, which have used BP's networks, although Samsung played down such concerns.

In the South Korea-based joint venture, three units of the Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest conglomerate, own a combined 47.41 percent and retailer Shinsegae Co. Ltd.

holds a 5.18 percent stake.

Samsung-BP Chemicals, a fine chemical producing joint venture between the two companies, would not be affected by the stake sale, Samsung added.

($1=958.1 Won) Reuters DKS GC0750