BP chief executive Bob Dudley hailed “a strong start to 2013” yesterday after the oil giant’s profits more than doubled in the first quarter.
Pre-tax profits in the period came in at £12.5billion, up from £5.6billion in the first quarter last year, or over £1,600 a second.
BP highlighted underlying replacement-cost profits, which strip out the effect of factors such as oil price movements, of £2.7billion – a 9% fall on last year but still much better than analyst forecasts of £2.1billion.
The better-than-expected results – boosted by increased production from the North Sea – meant shares rose 2% to 466.4p yesterday.
Mr Dudley said the early sale of the firm’s stake in Russian joint venture TNK-BP had been a highlight of the quarter, allowing it to return up to £5.2billion to shareholders, adding: “These results represent a strong start to 2013 across all of our businesses.”
The company sold its half of TNK-BP to Rosneft, receiving £10.7billion in cash and £6billion of shares in the Russian firm in return.
BP now holds 19.75% of Rosneft, the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company.
The UK group said its total oil and gas production since the Rosneft transaction was 3million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day, compared with just 2.33million during the first quarter.
Year-on-year, first-quarter output was down by 5% as a result of asset sales to cover the costs of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Alan Cockburn, a divisional director at wealth manager and financial-planning specialist Brewin Dolphin in Aberdeen, said: “Although the results are encouraging, we are mindful that there are still many pitfalls for BP to cross.
“The long-drawn-out department of justice trial in the US has the potential to weigh heavily on the shares in the coming months.”
The oil giant has been hit by more than 2,200 new lawsuits seeking payback for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
BP said that the new claimants had come forward since March 6, adding that it would apply to have them consolidated into the ongoing trial over liability currently taking place in New Orleans.
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