Coverage spread: 3 sources — 2 center · 1 international
Lean ratings via AllSides / Media Bias-Fact-Check. How this works.
Where they agree
- BP’s Q2 profit came in around $5.7bn, roughly double or more than the year-earlier period, driven by higher oil prices linked to the Iran war.
- BP is in the middle of a major divestment push, including selling its North Sea business, its Archaea renewable natural gas unit, and its Gelsenkirchen refinery in Germany.
- The restructuring is tied to CEO Meg O’Neill’s strategy of prioritizing value and returns over legacy businesses or clean-energy sentiment.
- The Gelsenkirchen sale to Klesch Group reduces BP’s refinery count to five sites and supports its cost-cutting targets.
Where they differ
- BBC focuses on the profit surge itself and the political/environmental backlash, quoting Greenpeace’s criticism of BP as ‘profiteering’ and Trump’s comments about Exxon and Chevron overcharging.
- MarketWatch gives only the bare financial headline (144% profit jump, beating Wall Street estimates) without any of the divestment or political context.
- Forbes focuses almost entirely on the Gelsenkirchen refinery sale and BP’s broader $20 billion divestment and cost-cutting plan, with detailed figures on refinery capacity, workforce, and target savings, but doesn’t mention the profit results or the Iran war context at all.
- Only BBC includes the North Sea sale’s symbolic weight (ending 60 years of BP production there) and campaigner reaction, while Forbes treats it as a brief aside to the Gelsenkirchen deal.
What BP reported
BP posted a net profit of $5.73bn (£4.26bn) for the second quarter of the year, running from April to June. That is more than double the $2.35bn it made in the same quarter a year earlier, and it’s BP’s highest quarterly profit since 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine war first sent energy prices soaring. MarketWatch frames the same figure as a 144% jump and notes it beat Wall Street’s expectations.
The driver was the price of crude. BP said Brent crude, the global benchmark, averaged $103.85 a barrel during the quarter, up sharply from $67.88 a year earlier. That increase followed the outbreak of the Iran war, which disrupted oil and gas supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Rivals felt the same tailwind: Shell also reported its quarterly profits doubling around the same time.
What BP is doing with the money and the business
Even with profits up, BP’s chief executive, Meg O’Neill, said the company is still not performing to its full potential. She has been steering BP away from clean energy investments and back toward its core oil and gas business, describing her approach as prioritizing “value, not sentiment or history.” As part of that shift, BP confirmed it will sell Archaea, its US renewable natural gas business.
That follows two other major moves. Last week, BP announced it is putting its entire North Sea business up for sale, which would end 60 years of BP production in that region. And on Monday, BP completed the sale of its Gelsenkirchen refinery in Germany to the Klesch Group, cutting its global refinery count down to just five sites (from 15 in 2006). BP did not disclose the sale price, but said the deal would add to free cash flow and lower underlying operating costs by roughly $1 billion. The refinery’s 1,800 employees, which processed about 265,000 barrels a day, have transferred to Klesch.
These sales are part of a broader $20 billion divestment plan meant to cut debt and boost returns under O’Neill. According to Forbes, the Gelsenkirchen sale has allowed BP to raise its structural cost-reduction target to a range of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion by 2027. BP’s interim head of downstream, Richard Harding, said the refinery sale strengthens the balance sheet and simplifies the portfolio, while BP’s Germany country head, Patrick Wendeler, said Klesch is well positioned to take the Gelsenkirchen site forward given its refining experience.
The political and public reaction
The scale of oil company profits has drawn criticism. Environmental group Greenpeace, through campaigner Angharad Hopkinson, said BP’s results show corporate gains have become disconnected from the public good, though she credited BP for its decision to exit the North Sea. Separately, US President Donald Trump said American oil firms ExxonMobil and Chevron were “making too much money,” adding that he doesn’t like it despite calling himself “a big free enterprise guy,” and suggesting oil companies should lower consumer prices and “give some of that back to the public.”
Investment director Russ Mould of AJ Bell said BP’s asset sales are meant to streamline the company because O’Neill knows current oil and gas prices won’t last forever, and she needs the business to hold up even when conditions are less favorable.
Why the pieces fit together
Taken together, the reporting shows a company riding a temporary price spike tied to Middle East conflict while simultaneously restructuring for a future where such spikes can’t be counted on. The profit jump and the divestments are separate stories on the surface, but they’re linked: high current profits give BP room to absorb the costs of selling off assets like Archaea, the North Sea business, and the Gelsenkirchen refinery, while O’Neill’s cost-cutting and portfolio-narrowing strategy is designed to make BP leaner regardless of where oil prices go next.
Sources
Featured photo: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)