BP Launches Green Strategy; Swung to 2Q Underlying RC Loss, Cuts Dividend

By Jaime Llinares Taboada

BP PLC on Tuesday launched a new green strategy, reported a swing to an underlying replacement cost loss for the second quarter of the year, and reset the quarterly dividend to a significantly lower level.

The FTSE 100 oil major said it is targeting a 10-fold increase in low carbon investment, a 40% cut in production, a 30%-35% cut in emissions from its operations, and reduction of over 15% in carbon intensity from the products it sells by 2030. In addition, it has committed not to undertake exploration in new countries.

In a separate statement, BP posted a $6.68 billion underlying replacement cost loss--a figure similar to the net-profit figure U.S. oil companies use but strips out one-off items--for the quarter, swinging from a $2.81 billion profit a year earlier. This was better than the market forecast of a $6.8 billion loss compiled by the company and based on 20 brokers' estimates.

The net loss came in at $16.85 billion compared with a $1.82 billion profit a year earlier.

"These headline results have been driven by another very challenging quarter, but also by the deliberate steps we have taken as we continue to reimagine energy and reinvent BP. In particular, our reset of long-term price assumptions and the related impairment and exploration write-off charges had a major impact," Chief Executive Bernard Looney said.

BP reset the quarterly dividend at 5.25 cents down from 10.25 cents in the second quarter of 2019. It also said it will return at least 60% of surplus cash as share buybacks under its new corporate strategy.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 04, 2020 02:40 ET (06:40 GMT)

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