BP Misses Fourth Quarter Expectations
Oil giant BP, the largest oil company in Europe by market capitalisation, was the subject of a sell-off on Tuesday morning after the firm reported a 45% fall in annual profits. Replacement cost profit in the fourth quarter of 2009 actually increased 33% to $3.45 billion from $2.59 billion the previous year but even this was below market expectations and the annual figure was down to $13.96 billion from $25.59 billion.
Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Tuesday, February 02, 2010
BP said that oil and gas production increased by 4% last year and its reserves grew for the seventeenth successive year. Nevertheless, it warned of a slow operational turnaround in 2010 after barely breaking even its refining business last year. Exploration and production are, of course, BP's main and most profitable activities, but refining is still important simply because of the profit margins which are more than double those elsewhere.
Approaching midday, BP was, in fact, the worst performer in the FTSE 100, down 27.8p or 4.68% at 566.80p. Its share price had fallen nearly 11% since peaking at 633.80p earlier in the year. It was a poor morning generally for oil companies in the FTSE 100 with Royal Dutch Shell – which is due to report its own figures later in the week – for example down 0.1%. Strength in the commodity and banking sectors was sufficient to outweigh the weakness, however and by midday the leading share index was up 18.90 points at 5,266.31, extending its gains for the week.
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