BP 1Q Earnings Fall 12% on Weaker Prices, Margins

By Oliver Griffin

BP PLC (BP.LN) posted a 12% fall in first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, attributing the result to weaker prices and margins.

The U.K. oil-and-gas giant said its replacement cost profit--a metric similar to the net income figure that U.S. oil companies report--fell to $2.1 billion in the three months ended March 31 from $2.39 billion in the year-earlier period.

Stripping out one-off items, BP's underlying replacement cost profit, the company's preferred metric, fell 8.8% to $2.4 billion. A company-compiled consensus of 24 brokers' estimates had forecast the company's first-quarter underlying replacement cost profit at $2.3 billion.

Revenue during the quarter fell 2.5% to $67.4 billion, BP said.

Operating cash flow for the first three months of the year, excluding payments related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, hit $5.9 billion, BP said. Payments related to the oil spill, which happened in 2010, were $600 million in the quarter.

BP declared a quarterly dividend of 10.25 cents a share. This is in line with prior quarters but up on the year-earlier period, when BP declared a dividend of 10 cents a share.

Write to Oliver Griffin at [e-mail]; @OliGGriffin

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 30, 2019 02:40 ET (06:40 GMT)

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