BP has been criticised after revealing its strongest quarterly profits for four years after being boosted by volatile energy prices during the Middle East conflict. <\/p>\n
It came as new boss Meg O’Neill said she is taking “urgent action” to create more value for shareholders and revealed plans to sell off its US biogas business, Archaea. <\/p>\n
The FTSE 100 company revealed its preferred profit measure \u2013 underlying replacement cost profit \u2013 surged by around 78% to 5.7 billion US dollars (\u00a34.2 billion) for the second quarter of 2026, compared with the previous three months. <\/p>\n
The sharp jump in profits, which surpassed analyst predictions, came as its refining and trading business benefited from rising prices during the Iran war. <\/p>\n
Rivals including Shell and ExxonMobil have also reported stronger profits after the boost linked to the conflict. <\/p>\n
Campaigners accused BP of profiteering from a “climate crisis”. <\/p>\n
Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns Rosie Downes said: “Clearly not everyone is feeling the pain of the energy crisis. <\/p>\n
“While BP banks another round of enormous profits, millions of households are paying the price through sky-high energy bills and a climate crisis accelerating rapidly out of control with increasingly severe heatwaves, wildfires and droughts.” <\/p>\n
Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said: “The price shock profiteers have banked more billions from a crisis that has created real hardship for millions of households.” <\/p>\n
The group confirmed plans to move further away from renewables, revealing plans to sell off its US renewable natural gas business Archaea. <\/p>\n
The move is part of efforts under the leadership of Ms O’Neill, who joined the firm in April, to sell off non-core assets as part of a strategy overhaul. <\/p>\n
Last week, BP said it was putting its UK North Sea business up for sale after 60 years of production. <\/p>\n
Bosses have said the group is also seeking to improve cost efficiencies in order to boost profitability. <\/p>\n
Ms O’Neill said: “We are not making the most of our potential. <\/p>\n
“Our performance over the past few years has not met our own expectations, let alone those of our shareholders. <\/p>\n
“We have not delivered consistently, we have written off too much value, and our costs and liabilities are not resilient enough in a low price environment. <\/p>\n
“We know what we need to do, we are taking urgent action and I am confident that this is how we will grow long-term value for shareholders.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BP has been criticised after revealing its strongest quarterly profits for four years after being boosted by volatile…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21198],"tags":[67,6704,24467,188,24873,1448,23671],"class_list":["post-96944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bp","tag-bp","tag-bp-plc","tag-climate-crisis","tag-energy-prices","tag-meg-oneill","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-profits"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117036208770947639","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}