BP posted a 1 per cent fall in quarterly post-tax profit to $6.087 billion as lower output and refinery outages outweighed near-record refining margins.
Traders said they expected the shares to open 1 per cent higher after the news as the underlying drop was smaller than expected.
London-based BP said the drop in its second-quarter replacement cost net profit would have been larger had it not been for non-operating gains totalling $741 million, largely from asset sales.
Stripping this gain out, the replacement cost profit, which excludes out changes in the value of inventories, fell 12.5 per cent to $5.346 billion, compared to an average forecast of $4.975 billion in a Reuters poll of 10 analysts.
The world's third-largest non-government controlled oil company by market value said its production of oil and gas fell 5 per cent to 3.804 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the second quarter, compared to 4.018 million boepd in the same period last year.
