Oil giant BP on Tuesday announced record annual profits of $19,3-billion, up 25% despite a fall in production after hurricane damage in the Gulf of Mexico.
Like its rivals Shell and ExxonMobil, the world’s second-largest oil firm benefited from the soaring price of crude oil last year. The price of crude leapt from $45 to $70 a barrel in August after Hurricane Katrina struck the US.
The storms also hit onshore refineries such as Texas City, where there was a fatal fire in March. The fire sent fourth-quarter production down to 4,02-billion barrels a day.
BP’s chief executive, Lord Browne, said: ”BP’s fourth-quarter result was particularly hit by the continued production shutdown of our Texas City refinery during its refurbishment.”
He added that the result for the whole of 2005 was ”a record” and ”reflects the quality of our asset base and operations”.
BP said its full-year result had been hit by a loss of $1,6-billion caused by the hurricanes.
Shell last week reported annual profits of $22,9-billion, the biggest in United Kingdom corporate history, but ExxonMobil, the sector leader, made the biggest profit of all, notching up $36-billion.
For the fourth quarter, BP posted profits of $4,4-billion, up 26% on the $3,5-billion it made a year ago.
BP also said it had managed to replace all of the fuel it pumped out the ground in 2005 from new reserves, giving it a proven reserve base of more than 18-billion barrels of oil and gas.
The figure is an improvement on last year’s, and beats Shell’s prediction last week of a replacement ratio of only 60% to 70% in 2005.
Analysts take particular note of oil companies’ replacement ratios, as these provide a pointer on future production.
”This is the 13th consecutive year that we have at least replaced our production,” the company said.
On top of proven reserves, BP also added nearly two billion new barrels to its non-proven resource base last year, taking it to a total of 41-billion, of which the company expects to convert about 11-billion into proven reserves by 2010. — Guardian Unlimited Â