BP BP Plc

By Selina Williams 

LONDON-- BP PLC's third-quarter profit rose 35% as the company continued to cut costs to offset continued weakness in oil prices and sliding refining margins.

The British energy giant said Tuesday that its replacement cost profit--a number analogous to the net income that U.S. oil companies report--totaled $1.66 billion, compared with a profit of $1.23 billion a year earlier.

Stripping out one-off items such as proceeds from sales and impairment charges, the company's underlying earnings of $933 million outperformed analysts' consensus of $686 million in a Dow Jones Newswires poll. In the same period last year, BP reported underlying earnings of $1.8 billion.

"We continue to make good progress in adapting to the challenging price and margin environment. We remain on track to rebalance organic cash flows next year at $50 to $55 a barrel," said BP Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary.

Write to Selina Williams at selina.williams@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 01, 2016 03:40 ET (07:40 GMT)

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