BP says it plans to sell off a further £6billion of assets over the next two years after seeing profits fall by more than $1.billion in the last year.
The supermajor posted profits for the third quarter of the year of $3.6billion – down from $5.3billion in the same period last year – despite seeing income more than $4billion to $98.2billion.
Despite the profits fall, however, BP said it would increase the dividend for shareholders by more than 5%, with profits from the sold-off assets going to share buy-backs and boosting shareholder payouts.
“In 2011 we set a clear target for operating cash flow in 2014 and we are confident in its delivery,” said chief executive Bob Dudley.
“The strong operational progress we are now seeing across the group, combined with our focus on disciplined investment, also underpins our confidence in growing long-term sustainable free cash flow and being able to increase shareholder distributions.
“Today’s announcement is a further demonstration of this.”
Watch BP chief executive Bob Dudley talk about the company’s third quarter results below
The oil giant said it had $0.7billion still to be unassigned from the $20billion trust fund set up to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster from 2010.
Earlier this month BP returned to court for the second phase of the trial over the disaster, where it looked to convince the court the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico was less than claimed by the US Government.
However, the company said a recent court ruling, suspending some compensation payments over claims of misrepresentation by victims, neabt it had left ‘significant uncertainty’ over how much would be paid out in future.
The company’s total outlay over the disaster now stands at $42.5billion.
Adjusted profits at BP’s upstream division were up slightly year on year to $4.42billion, with output down 2.3% year on year to 2,207 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, but up 3.4% through production-sharing agreements. Downstream operations saw profits up $0.7billion, with refining availability up above
BP said expected capital expenditure for the year to be around $24billion to $25billion, with a similar level next year, and similar spending on an annual basis until 2020. The company is looking to sell off a further $10billion in assets by the end of 2015, having already sold off $38billion over the last three years.
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