Energy

BP Earnings Saved by Refining Margins; Expects Higher Production in Q4

BP Mad Dog
Source: courtesy of BP
BP PLC (NYSE: BP) reported third-quarter 2015 results before markets opened Tuesday. The oil and gas supermajor posted adjusted diluted earnings per American depositary share (ADS) of $0.60 on revenues of $55.88 billion. In the same period a year ago, the company reported earnings per ADS of $0.99 on revenues of $94.77 billion. One ADS is equal to six ordinary shares.

BP’s replacement cost profit (essentially the company’s adjusted net income) in the third quarter totaled $1.23 billion, compared with $2.39 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Upstream profits totaled $823 million, compared with $3.9 billion in the third quarter of 2014. Production for the quarter totaled 2.24 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, 4.4% higher than the third quarter of 2014. BP said fourth-quarter production would be “slightly higher” as the planned turnaround season ends.

Downstream profits totaled $2.3 billion, compared with $1.48 billion in the year-ago quarter. The increase is the result of improved refining margins, strong refining operations and fuels marketing and, again, cost benefits from simplification and efficiency programs. For the fourth quarter, BP expects lower refining margins and lower demand for fuels.

Profit from the company’s stake in Russia’s Rosneft increased from $110 million in the third quarter of 2014 to $221 million to $382 million.

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Bob Dudley, BP’s group CEO, said:

Last year, we acted decisively to reset BP for a sustained period of lower oil prices and the results are coming through well. We are now in action to rebalance our financial framework in this new price environment.

And I am confident that BP’s strong and well-balanced portfolio of businesses and projects gives us the ability to grow value into the future. All of this underpins our strong priority of sustaining our dividend and then growing free cash flow and shareholder distributions over the long term.

BP currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.60 per ADS. The dividend yield is a handsome 6.72%.

Organic capital expenditure in the third quarter totaled $4.3 billion. For the year to date, BP’s organic capital spending totals $13.2 billion and total capex equals $13.4 billion. The company now expects organic capex to reach $19 billion this year and to fall in a range of $17 to $19 billion “in the near term.”

BP’s average realized price per barrel of oil in the third quarter was $44.01, compared with $91.42 in the third quarter of last year. The U.S. price of $46.22 a barrel was about $1.50 a barrel below the European price.

The company took a net charge of $426 million in the third quarter related to the Macondo well explosion in 2010 that killed 11 workers and dumped millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. So far in 2015, the company has paid out $11.51 billion. The cumulative pretax income statement charge since the disaster amounts to just over $55 billion.

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Settlements between the company and the federal and state governments have been agreed and comments on the consent decree with the federal government are due in early December. A hearing has been scheduled for March 2016 to consider the consent decree. Settlement agreements between BP and the five Gulf states are contingent upon approval of the consent decree. The amount of the settlement is $18.7 billion.

In October 2013, BP announced plans to divest a further $10 billion of assets before the end of 2015, having completed its earlier divestment program of $38 billion. Transactions to date have reached around $7.8 billion. Disposal proceeds totaled $300 million for the third quarter and $2.6 billion for the nine months.

BP traded up about 1.5% in Tuesday’s premarket, at $35.58 in a 52-week range of $29.35 to $43.85. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of $36.93 before this latest report.

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