BP profit beats expectations, but no news on Castrol sale

By Shadia Nasralla and Stephanie Kelly

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil major BP reported a smaller than expected fall in third-quarter underlying profit on Tuesday as higher refining margins partly offset the impact of lower crude prices.

However, BP provided no update on the closely-watched sale process for its Castrol lubricants unit, the centre-piece of its $20 billion asset-sale drive to slash its debt pile.

After an ill-fated foray into renewables under previous CEO Bernard Looney, BP has vowed to increase profitability and cut costs while re-routing spending to focus on oil and gas.

BP in August launched a review of how best to develop and monetise its oil and gas production assets and when new Chair Albert Manifold took up his post last month he called for a deeper reshaping of BP's portfolio to increase profitability.

Reuters reported in May, citing sources, that BP had kicked off the sale of Castrol.

PACE OF BUYBACKS KEPT STEADY

The company said it made an underlying replacement cost profit, or adjusted net income, of $2.21 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $2.02 billion in a company-provided poll, and $2.27 billion a year ago.

RBC analyst Biraj Borkhataria attributed the profit beat to BP's gas and downstream businesses.

BP shares were up 0.8% at 0824 GMT, outperforming a broader index of European energy companies, which was down 1%.

BP kept the pace of its quarterly share buyback programme at $750 million through the third quarter.

Chief Executive Murray Auchincloss said he expected completed or announced asset sale agreements would reach around $5 billion this year, helped by selling minority stakes in its U.S. onshore pipelines announced on Monday.

BP's European rivals Shell and TotalEnergies also posted third-quarter profit falls dragged down by lower oil prices, though Shell beat expectations helped by better trading results in its huge gas division and Total benefited from higher refining margins.

U.S. majors Exxon and Chevron both beat third-quarter estimates on higher oil and gas production.

Average Brent crude prices during the quarter declined 13% from the same period last year.

HIGHER REFINING RESULTS

BP's customers and products division, boosted by higher refining margins, posted a profit of $1.7 billion, outperforming last year's $381 million, when BP had a big outage at its U.S. Whiting refinery.

The customers division delivered its strongest third-quarter results on record, BP said, adding its refining availability was close to 97%, the best quarter in 20 years for the current portfolio.

BP's operating cash flow in the quarter was $7.8 billion, above last year's $6.8 billion. As previously guided, net debt was steady at around $26 billion compared with the previous quarter.

BP aims to cut its net debt to between $14 billion and $18 billion by end-2027.

(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Stephanie Kelly. Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Mark Potter)