BP Posts Highest Quarterly Profit in 18 Years

SUBSCRIBE SEARCH ARTICLES NEWS BP said profit surged to the highest in 18 years as soaring refining margins boosted earnings, speeding up the energy giant's efforts to fix its balance sheet and pay down debt. Image by AbantStudio via iStock

(Update) October 30, 2026, 3:02 PM GMT: Added Deepwater Horizon obligations details, impairment charges and CEO and CFO quotes.

BP Plc said profit surged to the highest in 18 years as soaring refining margins boosted earnings, speeding up the energy giant's efforts to fix its balance sheet and pay down debt.

Adjusted net income was $8.46 billion, up from $2.21 billion a year earlier, the London-based major said in a statement on Friday. More than half the profit came from the unit that includes oil refining and trading. 

The results are Chief Executive Officer Meg O'Neill's second full quarter at the helm and offer a fresh look at the operational performance that she's identified as a priority. BP's first outsider CEO is cutting costs, selling assets and paying down debt while preparing to lay out her longer-term strategy for the firm in December.

"It really was a banner quarter for the refining business," she said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. "We had very strong margins from the BP-operated refineries, we also had very strong underlying performance. We were able to capture the opportunity provided by the market."

Net debt tumbled to $13.87 billion from $22.3 billion just three months earlier, surpassing the company's target a year ahead of schedule. 

BP shares rose as much as 1.8 percent, and were up about 0.7 percent at 629 pence ($8.43) a share at 10:21 a.m. in London.

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The rapid improvement in BP's balance sheet gives O'Neill more room to consider shareholder returns after the company suspended buybacks earlier this year.

Still, for now BP is focused on balance sheet repair and paying down its remaining liabilities from the deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster earlier than expected and "in full." The company owes a total of about $6.8 billion by 2033 for the incident, spread across annual payments.

"We will use the cash flow we're generating this year to address all of the remaining liabilities," Chief Financial Officer Kate Thomson told journalists on a call Friday.

Buybacks

On Thursday, rival Shell Plc announced it was increasing its quarterly share buyback to $5 billion from $3 billion after its refining margins surged and earnings climbed to their highest since the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. TotalEnergies SE has pledged as much as $2.5 billion of repurchases this quarter, while Repsol SA and Eni SpA have also boosted their buybacks.

O'Neill said that's still not the priority for the time being and BP made no mention of share repurchases on Friday.

"It's very easy to get caught up in high prices and think that's an opportunity to distribute cash," she said, adding BP still has "more debt and more leverage than we really can afford in a low-price scenario."

O'Neill noted BP's total financial obligations amount to about $44 billion, including conventional debt, hybrid bonds, leases and payments for the Deepwater disaster.

Refining Bonanza

The profit surge comes amid a refining boom that's showering Europe's oil giants with cash, spurring BP's rivals to announce jumbo payouts to investors. 

Wars involving Iran and Russia have knocked out or disrupted oil refineries and trade routes, squeezing the world's capacity to turn crude into diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. That's driving up prices for consumers while handing outsized profits to plants that remain operational.

READ, Friday: Chevron Beats Estimates on High Oil Prices and Refining Margins

The company's adjusted net income beat the $7.3 billion average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. BP said oil and gas trading operations both performed strongly. It was the highest since the third quarter of 2008.

BP took another big impairment charge this quarter of about $4 billion, primarily related to transition businesses offshore wind and solar arm Lightsource. O'Neill said BP is working closely with its offshore wind partner to "help the business be as successful as possible."

BP's major's refining margin indicator surged to $46.70 a barrel during the quarter from $29.60 in the previous period. 

The company's Customer and Products unit, where oil trading and refining sit, made $4.8 billion in the quarter. It made $5.3 billion in all of 2025.

BP expects oil and gas production to fall slightly in the fourth quarter due to continued Middle East disruption and other impacts elsewhere.

"Every division came in ahead of consensus expectations, supported by some solid operational indicators in the upstream and downstream, as well as another strong quarter for the trading business," RBC analyst Biraj Borkhataria said in a note on Friday.

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