30 October 2026
If you are covering BP's latest financial results, please find below a comment from Maurizio Carulli, global energy analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
"Like peers benefiting from higher energy prices, BP delivered a strong set of results with robust earnings and cash flow growth and a significant decrease in net debt. Pleasingly the results beat expectations, highlighting that under new CEO Meg O’Neill and experienced CFO Kate Thompson, BP is clearly delivering – leaving it in a much better position towards the end of the year than where it started.
"Underlying profit before interest and tax at $13.4bn, up 150% year on year and 30% on the quarter. Underlying net profit was even better, up a staggering 283% over the course of the year and almost 50% on the quarter as higher energy costs fed into profits. Net debt including leases decreased significantly in the quarter, from $35.6bn in the second quarter to $27.2bn in the latest, helped by the strong cash flow generation. As a consequence, gearing including leases fell from 33.8% to 25.4%.
"BP benefits more than proportionally from a higher oil price environment versus its peers due to its higher level of debt, which is reduced faster when oil price are higher thanks to the extra cash flow generation. While the results have clearly benefited from the high oil price, it cannot be ignored that BP is now delivering robust operational execution, very high refining margin, strong trading profits.
"Furthermore, the company is rightly prioritising a faster repayment of the Deepwater accident liabilities. The only minor negative in today’s results statement is that the company has moderated expectations for fourth quarter earnings due to maintenance at its refineries and expected lower trading profits from a particularly high point in the third quarter, but regardless, evidence of the turnaround at BP is on full show now."
