BP Profit Hits $8.46bn as Middle East War Lifts Oil Prices

BP, the British oil company, reported an underlying replacement cost profit of $8.46 billion (£6.3 billion) for the third quarter of 2026, The Guardian reported on 30 October. The figure is BP's version of net income, the bottom-line profit measure, and it was up from $2.2 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected BP to report a profit of $7.3 billion. The result was BP's highest quarterly profit in almost two decades, since the $8.9 billion it recorded in 2008.

The war in the Middle East pushed up oil and gas prices and led to significantly higher trading for the company, according to the same report. Its refining business earned almost $47 for each barrel of fuel it produced. Bloomberg had earlier reported a refining margin of just under $47 a barrel for the quarter, the highest since BP changed how it measures that figure two years ago. Shell, another major oil company, had flagged a refining margin of $42 a barrel for the same quarter, up from $24 in the second quarter.

In its own results statement, BP said its underlying replacement cost profit for the quarter was $2.7 billion higher than in the previous quarter. Operating cash flow, the cash generated by day-to-day business, came to $14.8 billion.

The company also turned to a long-running liability. BP said it would use its excess cashflow to address in full the remaining liabilities from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It has agreed an accelerated lump-sum payment of $350 million to Louisiana to resolve Deepwater Horizon claims, and it has settled coastal damage litigation brought by local parishes, the administrative areas that serve as counties in Louisiana.

BP is led by chief executive Meg O'Neill. The company is expected to set out its first major strategy update under her on 15 December.