[London, 3rd Archyde.com]–The first quarter financial results released by British oil giant BP on the 3rd showed the highest level of net profit in the past 10 years. Rising oil prices and trading profits contributed. It also announced an expansion of share buybacks.
Soaring oil and gas prices offset losses associated with the sale of Russian assets, including the 19.75% sale of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
The loss from the sale of shares in Rosneft and two other joint ventures was $ 20.4 billion. It was slightly below the initial forecast of $ 25 billion for BP.
“Underlining replacement cost profit,” which is equivalent to net profit, was $ 6.2 billion, exceeding analysts’ forecast of $ 4.49 billion. It was $ 4.1 billion in the fourth quarter of last year and $ 2.63 billion in the same period last year.
It also announced that it would expand share buybacks to $ 2.5 billion by the end of the second quarter. As of February, it said it would accelerate its quarterly purchase pace from $ 1.25 billion to $ 1.5 billion.
The dividend per share of $ 0.0546 has been left unchanged.