Oil giant BP reported a sharp rise in underlying third-quarter profits on today thanks to high oil prices and strong refining margins, but US hurricanes weighed on the results.
The world's second-largest listed oil company said its replacement cost profit, which strips out gains or losses from changes in the value of fuel inventories, was $4.41 billion.
Excluding one-off items of $921 million, underlying profit was $5.33 billion, up from $4.18 billion in the same period last year, adjusted for Europe's new IFRS accounting rules.
The main driver of the profit increase was a bumper result in BP's upstream oil production division, with record refining margins also helping. If there had not been output disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico due to hurricanes, the result would likely have been a record quarterly profit.
BP's earnings from retailing fuel disappointed, however, as the firm was unable to fully pass on product price rises to customers.
BP said it would pay a quarterly dividend of 8.925 cents per share, up from 7.1 cents for the same period last year.