BP reported stronger-than-anticipated full-year profits on Tuesday, citing a strong operating performance across all business segments.
The British oil giant said its underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, came in at $12.7 billion in 2018. A company-provided consensus forecast had expected full-year underlying replacement cost profit of $11.88 billion.
“This is a really good quarter and, actually, the end of a great year for us,” Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday.
“We’ve doubled our earnings from last year (and) we’ve doubled our returns from last year — that’s what shareholders wanted to see,” he added.
Shares of BP rose toward the top of the European benchmark Tuesday morning, up more than 3 percent.
BP’s fourth-quarter profit jumped more than 65 percent when compared to the same period in 2017, following a sharp rise in oil and gas production and the acquisition of BHP’s U.S. shale assets.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Underlying replacement cost profit came in at $3.5 billion in the final three months of 2018. That compares to $2.1 billion over the same period in 2017.
- Return on average capital employed was 11.2 percent, compared to 5.8 percent in 2017.
- Dividend of 10.25 cents per share announced for the fourth quarter — 2.5 percent higher than a year earlier.
Market participants saw large gains in energy shares over the first nine months of 2018 largely wiped out by a dramatic decline in crude futures in the fourth quarter.
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