BP: really going beyond petroleum won't be easy

© BP plc
Following one of its “worst years on record” oil giant BP is gaining confidence. It plans to boost returns to shareholders after “higher oil prices and strong trading results buoyed its first-quarter earnings”, says Sarah MacFarlane in The Wall Street Journal. It made a profit of $3.32bn in the first three months of 2021, compared with a loss of $628m a year earlier. Having sold assets to cut net debt to $33bn from $39bn in the previous quarter, BP said it would buy back $500m of shares in the second quarter.
The reported profits were boosted by a $1bn gain on the sale of a stake in an Omani gas field, says Emily Gosden in The Times. However, even if you remove this gain and other “one-off factors”, underlying profits still more than tripled and were “well ahead” of analyst forecasts. BP’s CEO Bernard Looney believes that the “strong result” reflects two main factors. First, higher average oil prices of $61 a barrel, compared with $50 in the first quarter of 2020, have boosted margins. Cutting costs and trimming capital expenditure helped too. 

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