BP. Bp Plc

By Adriano Marchese

BP PLC (BP.LN) said Tuesday that it swung to a replacement cost loss in the fourth quarter, largely reflecting a weaker environment, but beat a consensus of analysts' forecasts on an underlying basis.

In the fourth quarter, the London-listed oil major said its replacement cost loss--a figure similar to the net income that U.S. oil companies report--was $4 million, compared with a replacement cost profit of $2.72 billion in the same period last year.

After excluding one-off items, underlying replacement cost profit for the three months was $2.57 billion, compared with $3.48 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018.

A consensus of 20 brokers supplied by BP had forecast underlying replacement cost profit of $2.11 billion.

Revenue in the period was $71.12 billion, down from $75.68 billion.

The board declared a quarterly dividend of 10.5 cents a share, an increase of 2.4% from a year earlier, the company said.

Reported oil-and-gas production averaged 3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2019, 2.7% higher than in 2018, it said.

BP said it expanded its low-carbon business in 2019, increasing ownership in its solar joint venture, Lightsource BP, to 50%, and that it completed the formation of its new Brazilian biofuels and biopower joint venture, BP Bunge Bioenergia.

Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2020, the company said it expects lower levels of industry refining margins and wider North American heavy crude oil discounts compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 04, 2020 02:40 ET (07:40 GMT)

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