Before the start of Tuesday’s trading session BP PLC (NYSE:BP) announced its earnings results for the entire 2014 and fourth quarter. Adjusted earnings (diluted) per ADS or American Depository Share for its fourth quarter were recorded at $0.74 along with revenue of $75.1. It should be noted here that each Depository Share or ADS is equal to six regular shares.
For the entire 2014, BP PLC (NYSE:BP) posted earnings of $3.96 per ADS and revenue of $358.68 billion; estimates for the company were $3.70 per ADS in earnings and $373.06 billion in revenue.
As for its unadjusted earnings BP PLC (NYSE:BP) reported fourth quarter loss worth $969 at earnings per ADS of $0.32; whereas the reported profit for the company at earnings per ADS of $2.36 was $12.14 billion. The main reasons given for the loss were damage to BP PLC’s (NYSE:BP) upstream assets and reserve revision. Impairment charge (non-operating) worth $5.56 billion was handed out to BP PLC (NYSE:BP) in the fourth quarter along with a charge of $6.3 billion for its upstream assets in Angola and the North Sea.
Additional charges for its Gulf of Mexico episode cost the company another $477 million in its fourth quarter. $43.5 billion both in claims and costs for the Mexico spill have been paid by BP PLC (NYSE:BP) so far.
BP PLC (NYSE:BP) posted quarter’s capital spending of $6.7 billion for its quarter and for the year it posted a figure of $23.8 billion. The company expects $20 billion to be spent in capital expenditure in the current year.
BP PLC (NYSE:BP) expects to sustain its third quarter’s dividend per ADS of $0.06 for its fourth quarter.
Oil barrels production on equivalent basis went down to 3.21 million barrels per day from 3.23 million; whereas liquids products also took a dip to 1.15 million barrels per day from 1.2 million in 2013’s same quarter.
BP PLC’s (NYSE:BP) downstream business (refined product sales) went down to 2.87 million barrels from the figure of 2.97 million posted back in 2013. However the company’s downstream profits (adjusted) went up to $1.21 billion from $70 million posted in 2013’s same quarter. For the full year of 2014 this figure rose to $4.44 billion from $3.63 billion.
As for the 2015 estimates for BP PLC (NYSE:BP)…
- Earnings of $0.37 per ADS are expected for 2015’s first quarter.
- Earnings of $2.09 per ADS are expected for the entire 2015
- Revenue for the full year is expected to be $255.4 billion.
The disaster that happened in Gulf of Mexico still haunts BP PLC (NYSE:BP); however the company has managed to pull itself out of this mess with investors still interested in its progress. The degree of trouble the company is in will only be known after the final results for penalties are given out by the court.
In yesterday’s premarket the ADSs’ of BP PLC (NYSE:BP) were up by 2% at $40.67; the stock’s range over 52 weeks falls between $34.88 and $53.48.
