Higher oil prices and increased output helped BP Plc (NYSE:\u00a0BP) quadruple its second-quarter profit from a year earlier as the oil major finally shakes off the after-effects of 2010\u2019s Deepwater Horizon spill and the last oil market slump.<\/p>\n
Second-quarter results have been a mixed bag for the world\u2019s top oil companies. Total\u00a0SA (NYSE:\u00a0TOT) beat forecasts and boosted production targets while Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE:\u00a0RDS.A) launched a $25 billion share buyback program despite profits falling short of expectations.<\/p>\n
U.S. majors Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:\u00a0XOM) and Chevron Corp. (NYSE:\u00a0CVX) disappointed Wall Street.<\/p>\n
BP confirmed it would increase its quarterly dividend for the first time in nearly four years, offering 10.25 cents a share, an increase of 2.5%. The company bought back shares to the tune of $200 million in the first half.<\/p>\n
In a further sign of recovery,\u00a0BP last week agreed to buy U.S. shale oil and gas assets\u00a0from global miner BHP Billiton for $10.5 billion.<\/p>\n
The deal, BP\u2019s first major acquisition in 20 years, marked a watershed for the company in the United States as it looks to leave behind the $65 billion fallout from the deadly explosion of its Deepwater Horizon rig in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n
Benchmark Brent crude futures, currently over $74 per barrel, rose about 16% in the first half of 2018 and are up about 60% since June last year.<\/p>\n
BP\u2019s output in the first six months of the year was 3.662 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboe\/d), including production at Russia\u2019s Rosneft, of which it owns just under a fifth, from 3.544 MMboe\/d a year earlier. That helped underlying replacement cost profit, BP\u2019s definition of net income, rise to $2.8 billion, exceeding forecasts of $2.7 billion, according to a company-provided survey of analysts.<\/p>\n
The company earned $0.7 billion a year earlier and $2.6 billion in the first quarter. BP\u2019s shares were up about 1.2%, hitting a two-week high in early trading.<\/p>\n
BP has paid around $2.4 billion of expected 2018 costs of just over $3 billion related to Deepwater Horizon, and plans to split the outstanding payments equally between the third and fourth quarters, CFO Brian Gilvary said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the company has tightened its investment budget for this year to about $15 billion from previously up to $16 billion and increased its divestment guidance to over $3 billion from $2 billion to $3 billion.<\/p>\n
Gearing, the ratio between debt and BP\u2019s market value, declined to 27.8% at the end of the quarter from 28.1% at the end of March. Net debt was $39.3 billion at the end of June compared with $40 billion at the end of March.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith gearing nudging down sequentially, dividends raised, and execution on track, 1Q and 2Q are the start of a new positive trend for BP,\u201d Bernstein analyst Oswald Clint said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Higher oil prices and increased output helped BP Plc (NYSE:\u00a0BP) quadruple its second-quarter profit from a year earlier as the oil major finally shakes off the after-effects of 2010\u2019s Deepwater Horizon spill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,57,90,96,107,137,139,160,174,184,201,202,209,232,233,244,246,249,256,267,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aramco","tag-baroudi","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-embargo","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-international-maritime-disputes","tag-lebanon","tag-maritime-disputes","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-straddling-hydrocarbons-reserves","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}