BP Q2 profits surge amid sell-offs

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OIL AND GAS giant BP has reported a Q2 profit of US$5.7bn, the highest quarterly profit for the company since 2022.

The surge has been attributed to the energy price hikes kickstarted by the US–Iran conflict and the trade disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

BP itself has undergone several leadership changes in recent years, with new CEO Meg O’Neill prioritising divestments and the company’s core oil and gas business.

In the past week, BP has put its North Sea assets and its US$4bn biogas business in the US up for sale. Priority is being lent to increasing shareholder dividends, which have increased by 4% on the previous quarter.

O’Neill said the simplification of the company’s portfolio is “based on value, not sentiment nor history”, with a focus on assets that deliver the most return for shareholders.

UK oil and gas

Despite retreating from the North Sea due to a lack of “competitiveness”, O’Neill has urged the UK’s new prime minister Andy Burnham to invest more in the UK’s oil and gas resources. The industry has been critical of the UK’s Energy Profit Levy (EPL), saying that it discourages investment.

John Swinney, first minister of Scotland, has also urged Burnham to scrap the “destructive” tax in an effort to reverse BP’s North Sea decision.

He said: “What we need, above all, is for the new prime minister to end the unfair EPL and put in place a sensible tax regime to protect the workers of Scotland and the North East.”

Burnham has yet to make a decision on greenlighting two controversial North Sea drilling projects: Jackdaw and Rosebank, led by Shell and Equinor.