BP profits highest in four years as Iran war pushes up oil price

BP reported a net profit of $5.73bn (£4.26bn) for the April‑to‑June period, more than triple the $2.35bn earned in the same quarter a year earlier and the highest quarterly net since the outset of the Russia‑Ukraine conflict in 2022. The surge follows the outbreak of fighting in the Middle East, which has disrupted crude supplies through the Strait of Hormuz and lifted Brent crude to an average of $103.85 a barrel in the quarter, up from $67.88 a year before. Environmental and poverty campaigners denounced the earnings as “profiteering” from soaring oil prices. Despite the profit jump, chief executive Meg O’Neill said the firm was not reaching its full potential. “Despite the large emergence successful profits, BP main enforcement Meg O'Neill said the institution was not reaching its afloat potential,” she remarked. O’Neill added that the company is shifting focus away from clean energy, announcing plans to divest its US renewable natural‑gas business, Archaea. “O'Neill said this was portion of her program to prioritise "value, not sentiment oregon history”,” she said, and explained, “We person to absorption connected the assets with the strongest imaginable to present competitory returns and semipermanent value,” she said. Last week BP placed its North Sea operations on the market, a move that would end six decades of production in the region for the company. Angharad Hopkinson of Greenpeace criticised the results, stating that “corporate gains person go wholly divorced from the nationalist good.” She noted, “the 1 constituent connected which we hold with BP” is the decision to sell off its North Sea assets, and warned, “Prolonging this parasitic narration by trying to compression the past fewer drops of costly lipid retired of the North Sea is sheer folly,” Hopkinson said. The rise in crude prices has also pushed up petrol, diesel and household energy costs worldwide.