BP Raises Shareholder Payouts as 2Q Profits Beat Views -- Update

By Jaime Llinares Taboada

BP PLC on Tuesday reported profits that rose further in the second quarter of the year, beating analysts' expectations, and raised shareholder distributions.

The multinational energy group made an underlying replacement cost profit of $8.45 billion for the three months ended June 30, up from $6.25 billion in the first quarter. This beat market expectations of $6.79 billion according to the consensus compiled by the company and averaged from 28 brokers.

On a quarterly basis, the increase in profits reflected higher refining margins, continuing exceptional oil trading performance and higher liquids realizations. This was partly offset by lower gas marketing and trading earnings, reflecting the impact of the outage at the Freeport liquefied natural gas plant in the U.S.

Net income was $9.26 billion compared with a net loss of $20.38 billion in the first quarter.

Operating cash flow rose to $10.86 billion from $8.21 billion, while net debt was reduced to $22.82 billion from $27.46 billion.

BP raised the dividend to 6.006 cents a share from 5.460 cents in the previous quarter, and set out a share buyback of $3.5 billion to be completed by its third-quarter results. This is up from the latest quarterly buyback of $2.5 billion set out alongside the first-quarter results.

For the third quarter of the year, BP forecast broadly flat upstream production and warned of consumer demand changes driven by inflationary pressures. Still, oil and gas prices and refining margins are expected to remain high.

Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at [e-mail]; @JaimeLlinaresT

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 02, 2022 03:09 ET (07:09 GMT)

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