Bp Share Discussion Threads

[planit2] 03/5/2022 20:01

I will be very happy if BP just keep Rosneft in the locker for the next year. There is no reason to virtue signal by throwing it away for nothing in my mind (like saying "that'll teach you Putin" and throwing $25bn at him).

Buybacks are one of the reasons I am happy to invest, mathematically I am banking on a large number of buybacks which will concentrate the earnings more and more. The depressed share price is vital for this being effective.

Current running PE ratio is under 4 proving that buybacks are a great option.

I think everone needs to remember pension funds have been selling oil companies for the last 2 years.

BTW when looking in dollar terms the share price is 10% below where it was in Feb (ADR now 31 was 34).

[topvest] 03/5/2022 19:47

I am no longer a direct shareholder in BP, but today's woke reporting on windfall taxes has been quite appalling in my view.

The headline is just wrong and all the reporting today misleading and factually incorrect. BP lost cUS$20bn in the quarter, so this headline is total rubbish.



Did they ask for money when the oil price was nearly zero?...no they did not. For once BP can make some money and pay down its debt pile, before the oil prices crashes again at some point. Ask BP shareholders if they feel they have had a windfall owning shares in BP. It's been a very difficult time for a decade or so.

One does get the feeling that the BBC has decided what their mission is and then change the facts to support their argument. This is truly awful journalism.

I actually feel sorry for BP. They can't do anything right.

[marktime1231] 03/5/2022 19:30

There is definitely a feeling that BP is making the most of the good times from extreme oil and gas trading, as if to acknowledge that future income and margins from low carbon energy might not come close to what we are getting from fossil fuels. Debt reduction and buybacks and dividend restraint the order of the day.

And the good times are exceptional, super surplus cash flows while disposing of assets and controlling dirty capex while low-carbon capex hasn't really taken off yet. The debt reduction and even bigger buyback are beyond wildest expectation, over $40M every working day.

It makes me a little sorry BP hasn't made much investment so far in operational renewables, while we are seeing the new energy firms like TRIG, UKW, NESF and GRID build £1B+ portfolios and deliver great returns. We have to believe Looney that his strategy of committing to larger longer term investments at an early stage will pay back better eg while milking legacy fossil fuels. He has been right so far, and the economic outlook of renewables seems to get better and better.

Time will tell.

Anyhow 9/10 for the quarterly report and share price response, -1 for using that awful phrase "financial frame" again.

I wonder what prospect there is of realising some value from Rosneft.

[waldron] 03/5/2022 19:25

Tuesday 03 May 2022 7:11 pm
Windfall tax misses the point – energy giants must invest

By: City A.M. Editorial

City A.M. believes in London, its people, and its businesses.



A windfall tax is a terrible idea – but BP would have been savvy to up investment not go for a buyback

It’s the middle of 2020, and the price of oil has tanked to almost single digits.

Energy giants are being slammed by an almost total collapse in demand.

BP’s share price is down 30 per cent on the year. Bernard Looney, the new boss of BP, is faced with the challenge of his business life as he begins to count the losses the pandemic was inflicting on a minute-by-minute basis.

As all this is happening, one thing is notably absent: specifically, political sympathy.


The same was true when the firm booked an £18bn loss for the year.

There were no impassioned calls for a bailout.

No politician lined up to say that lockdowns and events outside of BP’s control had left this once proud company licking its wounds.

Two years forward, with the oil price recovered, and BP are reporting underlying profits at a very healthy clip, though obscured by the costly pull-out from Russia.

The lack of sympathy has been replaced with the very real presence of anger.

Calls for a windfall tax are so far being mercifully ignored by Downing Street, on the grounds that it would – as it would – hit investment and do little for Britain’s reputation as business-friendly, though ask most foreign investors about that and they’re liable to scoff.

Alas, BP can not rest easy: relying on this contortionist government to hold the line may prove unwise.


Where criticism is fair is around the decision to boost a share buyback, rather than putting it towards either capital investment or the firm’s worthy transition efforts.

It is easier to argue, as we do, that energy companies are the ally not the enemy of the climate cause when they back it up with cold hard cash.

We will have to do this windfall tax dance again on Thursday, when Shell report their own bumper earnings.

The most important number for both, though, is the cost of their Russian pullout.

Doing the right thing can be costly, and for energy companies doubly so.

That should be remembered alongside the criticism.

[optomistic] 03/5/2022 15:21

Goldpig, it's those sort of figures that will keep me out of BP until things change, starting with a change at the top with someone in charge that will bring back BRITISH PETROLEUM back to the forefront and forgaet the buy backs...they have been doing them for as long as I can remember and done no good at all to the shareholders.
Same could be said for the inhabitants of no 10, never mind the greens let's get the company and country back on it's feet. Up here in Yorkshire two power stations have been decked, Eggborough and Ferrybridge, the first supporting a large community and Ferrybridge an enormouse plant producing very large amount of electricity. now just a pile of rubble replaced by thousands of plastic windmills (around the country) which will last as long as the pyramids. Big difference is that they will be buried not to be seen again unlike the pyramids which are there for us a marvel at...

[smurfy2001] 03/5/2022 15:06

Tygarreg, their dividends suck right now. Management should focus on paying down debt even faster and paying a higher dividend. Instead they are focussed on increasing the EPS so they can hit their targets to earn their bonuses like most companies doing buy backs right now. They are lucky gas prices are so high not being reflected in the share price though.

[goldpiguk] 03/5/2022 14:58

Hi Tygarreg,

While there is some truth in your comments about resilient BP, I do not agree with your conclusion that BP must have amazing management.

Before the Mancando Gulf disaster, BP was capitalised at $187.5 billion. (19th April 2010.) Today BP. is capitalised at around $105 billion.

In the financial year 2009 - 2010 BP paid an annual dividend of 56 cents. In the last financial year it paid just under 22 cents.

BP's long-term record so far in the 21st century has been rather poor.

Goldpig

[investtofly] 03/5/2022 14:50

Just as shame the top man is a LOONEY lol

[richvandam] 03/5/2022 13:13

<<Retracted>;>

[planit2] 03/5/2022 12:46

How much of that decrease is due to the accountancy changes for Rosneft?

[spacecake] 03/5/2022 12:39

Total hydrocarbons produced down ~ 29% over the same period last year.

[skinny] 03/5/2022 11:49

RBC Capital Markets Outperform 400.70p 0.00p 450.00p Reiteration

[tygarreg] 03/5/2022 11:38

We have to remember how resilient BP are.They have suffered four force majeurs in last few years1. Macondo Gulf oil disaster 2. Covid world lockdown3. Move from oil to renewables4. Loss of Russian Rosneft due to war.A company that survive all that must have amazing management.

[utyinv] 03/5/2022 11:09

Empirical data proves, across all companies, banks, oils, pharmas etc etc, that they don’t really serve the ordinary shareholder as much as the BoD who have their bonus’s and share options set and based on Earnings per Share.

It has also been inferred that share buy backs show a lack of imagination by the BoD to make the company bigger and better which in turn will increase revenues.

UK Companies are always frightened of becoming big and profitable in fear that the Left wing will push for windfall taxes. BP mkt cap £78billion. Producing oil and Gas to serve the worlds energy needs. Tesla, making electric cars, mkt cap £1000billion ( £1trill). No logic!

As for the Left Wing calling for a windfall tax, that is no different to a redistribution of wealth. Investors have sacrificed their hard earned money to get an income, the Left fail to appreciate that. Most investors have earned their investment money through hard work rather than lying in bed and not getting up to go work.

If this continues, many more middle class hard working professionals will take their money Abroad where profit and wealth is welcomed rather than frowned about.

With regards to dividends, the pay outs were much higher pre Covid due to the lack of demand because people were sat at home on furlough. Now people are back at work and profits are returning why hasn’t the Company returned the dividend back to normal?

The BBC say BP made a profit of £5 billion. They made a loss of £20billion due to the Russian business.

The war and the pandemic are being used to create an excuse for a redistribution of wealth. Investors are not a charity to help those who can’t be bothered to work hard and improve themselves.

The people who do need our help are the Ukrainians who have undergone genocide by that nasty left wing dictator Putin.


We all must pay for the pandemic and the war. £5 to buy a piece of bread for a fleeing refugee is justified, spending £5 on someone who doesn’t want to do his/her duty in going out to work and spending the £5 of benefits to buy beer or cigarettes is not justified.

One good democrat once said “Do not ask what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country”
which did not include giving handouts to those who didn't want to work. Kennedy disliked the Left, Communists and lazy.

[richvandam] 03/5/2022 10:56

Also, they have valued absolute worst case Rosneft as a zero asset, don’t be surprised if they find a buyer to get some payback for its stake.

I’m still utterly dissatisfied and disappointed with the increase in share buy backs rather than dividend.

BP produces statements like the government, gone are they days they answered to share holders (apart from the ones pushing the green policies).

[richvandam] 03/5/2022 10:53

This world is fked.

No wonder we are in the state we are in with this insane bias, how can we trust anything these people publish?! The media wants shooting for the misinformation they publish.

[spacecake] 03/5/2022 10:43

The buybacks and dividends are just delaying the transformation process, just get on with it BP, pay off the debt and speed up the transition to nett zero.

[tygarreg] 03/5/2022 10:38

BBC News - BP profits soar as calls for windfall tax growhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61304001

[tygarreg] 03/5/2022 10:35

Unbelievably BBC have interpreted BP's $23b loss into a$6b profit headline to help fuel Starmers election campaign. The loss has been buried into the bottom of their report. Quite staggering bias from bbc

[trikytree] 03/5/2022 10:25

The share buy backs and debt repayments will reward those willing to hold just as much, if not more than higher dividends. 600 in 12-18 months.

[marmar80] 03/5/2022 09:17

Do you think BP would be interested in buying HUR that carries potential 16p in tax losses with no expiry? Atm there is a link between those two as BP buys oil from Hur at slightly discounted price.

[kasamavic] 03/5/2022 09:01

BBC have said "nearly £5bn" profit.