Shell, Exonn and now BP – all have been hurt by low oil prices.
The UK giant’s underlying profits in the final quarter were down 20% on a year earlier at $2.2bln.
Full year profit was 10% lower at just over $12bln.
BP is slashing capital spending by a fifth to $20bln as a result.
The oil giant did at least beat fourth quarter expectations thanks to a surprise profit from its Russian partner Rosneft.
The $470 million boost helped shares rise around 5 percent before falling back.
But profits from oil production were down 42% and CEO Bob Dudley said the firm had entered a “challenging phase”
Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were up $2.13 cents at $56.88 a barrel as of 1143 GMT. U.S. WTI futures were at $51.33 a barrel, up $1.76 cents.
Clean-up costs relating to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico crisis are still an issue.
The total cost of the spill now stands at $43.5 billion dollars.
BP’s already announced plans to axe thousands of jobs by the end of the year as part of a $1 billion restructuring program.
It also wrote down $3.6bln of assets to reflect the lower value of its operations and reserves.
Taking that into account, and other one-off items – BP’s loss for the quarter was close to $1bln
Reuters
