BP Beat 3Q Profit Expectations Amid Upstream Business Recovery
October 27 2020 - 4:00AM
Dow Jones News
By Jaime Llinares Taboada
BP PLC on Tuesday reported a narrowed underlying replacement
cost profit for the third quarter of the year that beat market
expectations.
The FTSE 100 oil giant made an underlying replacement cost
profit of $86 million for the three months ended Sept. 30 compared
with the company-compiled market consensus of a $120 million loss.
The metric is similar to the net profit figure that U.S. oil
companies use but strips out one-off items. BP had reported a $2.25
billion underlying RC profit a year earlier.
BP's net loss for the period came in at $450 million, narrowing
from a $749 million loss a year earlier.
A weak oil market continued to hurt the British company in the
third quarter, with average prices of $43 a barrel severely
squeezing margins during the period. However, BP said that,
compared with the second quarter, the company's financial
performance benefited from the absence of significant exploration
write-offs, and recovering oil and gas prices and demand. The
upstream division swung to a $878 million underlying RC profit
before interest and tax in the third quarter compared with a $8.5
billion loss in April to June.
BP's board declared a dividend of 5.25 cents a share for the
period, in line with the shareholder payment reset announced this
summer. It is down from 10.25 cents a year earlier.
The company reported net debt of $40.4 billion as at Sept. 30,
down $500 million from the beginning of the quarter.
Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at jaime.llinares@wsj.com;
@JaimeLlinaresT
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 27, 2020 03:45 ET (07:45 GMT)
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