Oil giant BP has said it is now set for an “exceptional” oil trading result in the first three months of the year after the Iran war sent the cost of crude soaring.
The FTSE 100 firm upgraded its first quarter oil trading guidance, which follows a “weak” out-turn for the division in the final quarter of 2025.
BP said it was seeing “impacts associated with the ongoing situation in the Middle East and the current market conditions resulting in heightened volatility in crude oil, natural gas and refined products prices in the latter part of the first quarter”.
“These market conditions are expected to impact financial results, including trading results and working capital movements,” it added, pointing to an increased impact of so-called price lags.
Oil prices have surged higher since the US-Israel war on Iran started on February 28 and are now more than 60% up so far this year.
Brent crude reached close to 120 US dollars a barrel at one stage and is still hovering around the 100 dollars level as peace talks falter and amid fears over a looming global energy supply crisis.
BP said Brent crude prices averaged 81.13 dollars a barrel over the first quarter as a whole, which includes just over four weeks of volatility caused by the Middle East conflict.
This is up sharply from 63.73 dollars a barrel in the previous three months.
Every one dollar movement per barrel in oil prices leads to a 340 million-dollar (£251 million) impact on pre-tax operating profits, according to BP.
BP said upstream production was now expected to be broadly flat compared with the previous quarter, while oil production would be slightly lower, adding that net debt was set to increase to between 25 and 27 billion US dollars (£18.5 billion to £20 billion), up from 22.2 billion dollars (£16.4 billion) in the fourth quarter.
The firm will report first quarter figures on April 28.
