BP beat analyst expectations on Tuesday, despite profits more than halving from the first three months of the year after a hefty charge from an unsuccessful project in Angola.

Here are some of the highlights from the earnings:

• Underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, $684 million in the second quarter vs. expected $500 million from a company-provided consensus.
• Revenue of $57.37 billion versus $50.62 billion expected by Thomson Reuters analysts’ consensus.

“We continue to position BP for the new oil price environment, with a continued tight focus on costs, efficiency and discipline in capital spending,” Bob Dudley, chief executive officer at BP, said in a statement shortly after the second-quarter results were announced.

“We delivered strong operational performance in the first half of 2017 and have considerable strategic momentum coming into the rest of the year and 2018, with rising production from our new upstream (exploration and production) projects and marketing growth in the downstream,” he added.

BP currently has one of the highest “breakeven” prices among its peers, after a series of acquisitions at the start of the year pushed up its spending plans. The estimated oil price at which BP‘s upstream assets would offset its costs stands at $60 a barrel, above the market rate of around $50 a barrel.

Meantime, BP rival, Royal Dutch Shell, posted better-than-expected earnings in the second quarter of 2017. Europe’s largest oil firm reported last week that its profits were three times larger than over the same period a year earlier.

Source: cnbc
BP profits hit by Angola write-off, CEO says it's preparing for 'new oil price environment'