For BP, 'Every dollar counts'

London - British oil major BP on Tuesday reported a 24% slide in fourth-quarter net profit but a leap of 39% for the whole of 2008 as oil prices swung from record highs to multi-year lows.

BP, which axed 3 000 jobs in 2008 as part of a cost-cutting programme, said it expected to exceed its original target of 5 000 reductions by the middle of 2009.

"We have made good progress in slimming and simplifying the organisation while at the same time strengthening the front line, but we're not being complacent," chief executive Tony Hayward said in a statement accompanying BP's results.

"In the current climate we especially need to maintain the momentum we have established in the drive to make BP more efficient. The mantra in BP today is: 'Every dollar counts, every seat counts.'"

Net profit for all of 2008 jumped to $25.59bn, while earnings in the fourth quarter fell on a 12-month comparison to $2.59bn, BP said in a statement.

The data excluded the value of the group's energy inventories.

Hayward said the fourth quarter result "mainly reflected the recent dramatic fall in the world price of crude oil."

Shell loses

The company also incurred exceptional costs totalling $900m mainly linked to taxes that had to be paid by its Russian joint venture TNK-BP as well as because of changes to the value of currencies.

Including the value of its inventories, BP recorded a net loss of $3.34bn in the fourth quarter and a gain of 1.5% for the year to $21.16bn.

BP said its production increased by 1.0% in the fourth quarter from production in the same period of 2007 to 3.95 million barrels of oil equivalent.

For the year, output was up slightly from 2007 at 3.84 million equivalent barrels of oil a day.

BP's rival, Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell, had last week posted a net loss of $2.81bn in the final quarter of 2008 as plunging oil prices slashed the value of its inventories.

The loss compared with a net profit of $8.47bn during the fourth quarter of 2007 when crude prices were far higher, Europe's largest oil company had said.

Oil prices had slumped to near five-year lows below $33 a barrel during the fourth quarter as the global economic slowdown curbed demand for energy.

The sharp drop in prices came after oil struck historic highs above $147 in July as the markets focused on simmering geopolitical tensions in major crude exporters Iran and Nigeria.

- AFP