By Jaime Llinares Taboada


BP PLC said Tuesday that it will aim to sustain earnings from hydrocarbon production out to 2030, even though production is expected to fall 40% by the end of the decade from 2019 levels.

The British oil-and-gas giant wants annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from hydrocarbons to remain at around $33 billion until 2025, and then maintain it in a $30 billion-$35 billion range until 2030. BP said that this will be achieved through a continued focus on costs and performance, and disciplined investments in high-margin opportunities.

Meanwhile, the company is aiming to grow total earnings through to 2030, with Ebitda from bioenergy, convenience, electric-vehicle charging, renewables and hydrogen rising to between $9 billion and $10 billion by that year. In order to achieve this, the company will ramp up investment in transition growth businesses to more than 40% of total capital expenditure by 2025, and to around 50% by 2030.

"The past two years have reinforced our belief in the opportunities that the energy transition presents--to create value for our shareholders and to get to net zero," Chief Executive Bernard Looney said.

Shorter term, BP said Tuesday that it intends to execute a $1.5 billion buyback prior to its first-quarter results, and declared a dividend of 5.46 cents a share for the fourth quarter, in line with the previous period.

The British oil-and-gas giant also reported an underlying replacement cost profit of $4.07 billion in the fourth quarter, beating the company-compiled market consensus of $3.93 billion--averaged from 26 brokers' estimates. This represented an increase from $3.32 billion in the third quarter and from $115 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, when oil-and-gas prices were lower.

Compared with the third quarter, earnings rose on the back of higher oil-and-gas prices, higher refining margins and stronger trading results, BP said.

Full-year underlying RC profit was $12.82 billion, swinging from a $5.69 billion loss booked in 2020 and exceeding the $9.99 billion profit reported in 2019, before the pandemic started. This helped the company reduce net debt to $30.61 billion from $38.94 billion throughout the year.

Net profit was $2.33 billion for the fourth quarter and $7.57 billion for 2021.

Upstream production including Rosneft fell 4.5% to 3.32 million oil-equivalent barrels a day.

"2021 shows BP doing what we said we would--performing while transforming. We've strengthened the balance sheet and grown returns," Mr. Looney said.

Looking forward, BP forecast that its upstream production will fall in the first quarter due to base declines and higher maintenances, although it is expected to remain flat for the whole of 2022.

Shares at 0802 GMT were up 1.0% at 412.9 pence.


Write to Jaime Llinares Taboada at jaime.llinares@wsj.com; @JaimeLlinaresT


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-08-22 0339ET