Oil major BP's profits more than doubled to $6.2 billion in 2017 up from $2.6 billion in 2016, the company announced on Tuesday.
Exploration in 2017 was the most successful year for BP since 2004, with around 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) resources discovered, it said.
'2017 was one of the strongest years in BP’s recent history,' Bob Dudley, group chief executive of the British oil giant was quoted as saying.
'We delivered operationally and financially, with very strong earnings in the downstream, upstream production up 12 percent, and our finances rebalanced. And we did all this while maintaining safe and reliable operations,' he continued.
Dudley said the company has entered the second year of its five-year plan with 'real momentum, increasingly confident that we can continue to deliver growth across our business, improving cash flows and returns for shareholders out to 2021 and beyond.'
Seven new major projects were delivered in 2017 that boosted oil and gas production, BP said, adding the 12 percent increase in upstream production, which excludes BP’s share of production with its partner in Russia Rosneft, was the highest since 2010.
Including Rosneft, production was 3.6 million boe a day, 10 percent higher than 2016 while oil and gas realizations were 25 percent higher, it noted.
By Ebru Sengul
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr