BP expected to reveal bumper profits when it updates the City

The size of the profits that BP made last year will be revealed on Tuesday, opening the company up to the same criticism that hit its rival Shell this week.
By Greg Wright
Published 6th Feb 2023, 07:54 BST

Boss Bernard Looney is expected to reveal what could be the highest profit in BP’s history, after the company benefited from the fossil fuel crisis that has overshadowed much of the past year.

Oil, and especially gas, prices soared in 2022, with the former hitting a record high at more than 10 times the average over the decade leading up to the pandemic.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It made for a good year for the bank accounts of oil companies, but a difficult year for their reputations.

The size of the pile of cash that BP made last year will be made bare on Tuesday, opening the company up to the same criticism that hit its rival Shell this week. Boss Bernard Looney is expected to reveal what could be the highest profit in BP's history, after the company benefited from the fossil fuel crisis that has characterised so much of the past year. Issue date: Sunday February 5, 2023.The size of the pile of cash that BP made last year will be made bare on Tuesday, opening the company up to the same criticism that hit its rival Shell this week. Boss Bernard Looney is expected to reveal what could be the highest profit in BP's history, after the company benefited from the fossil fuel crisis that has characterised so much of the past year. Issue date: Sunday February 5, 2023.
The size of the pile of cash that BP made last year will be made bare on Tuesday, opening the company up to the same criticism that hit its rival Shell this week. Boss Bernard Looney is expected to reveal what could be the highest profit in BP's history, after the company benefited from the fossil fuel crisis that has characterised so much of the past year. Issue date: Sunday February 5, 2023.

Analysts currently expect that BP made 5.04bn dollars (£4.2bn) in underlying replacement cost profit, the company’s preferred measure, in the last three months of 2022. It would mean the annual result nearly doubling to 27.8bn dollars (£22.9 bn).

“Oil and gas prices are now trading some way off their peaks, but the shares continue to rise, which is intriguing,” wrote Russ Mould and Danni Hewson at AJ Bell.

“Perhaps the markets are sensing another upward move in the price of fossil fuels, and perhaps that’s thanks to the prospect of increased demand from China as its economy reopens, America’s need to replenish its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, weak Russian output, OPEC’s apparent determination to maintain a balanced market and the majors’ unwillingness (or inability) to markedly increase capital investment in exploration and production.”

Related topics:China