BP CEO hails exploration discovery boon after surprise profit beat
Trowbridge in Somerset, England, on March 15, 2025.
Anna Barclay | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss on Tuesday leaned into the growth potential of the company’s recent oil and gas discoveries, as the struggling energy major contends with takeover questions and a major turnaround plan.
“Inside the upstream, we’ve had tremendous performance, along with record operating efficiency [and] along with starting up five new major projects,” BP’s Auchincloss told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe“, just after the release of the company’s second-quarter results.
He added that he was “very optimistic” about the company’s latest exploration discovery in the Bumerangue block in Brazil’s Santos Basin, just over 400 kilometers (248.5 miles) from Rio de Janeiro. BP is currently carrying out tests to further analyze the block’s potential.
The Bumerangue discovery, announced Monday, is the firm’s 10th since the start of the year and reflects a potentially significant boost as BP continues to double down on hydrocarbons.
After underperforming its peers in recent years, the firm has shifted gears by way of a fundamental strategic reset that will see BP prioritize fossil fuels and slash renewable spending.
Earlier on Tuesday, the energy major reported underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $2.35 billion for the three months through June — comfortably beating analyst expectations of $1.81 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus.
Ramping up investor returns, the company also said its quarterly dividend will increase to 8.32 cents from 8 cents and that it will maintain the pace of its share buyback program at $750 million for the second quarter.
Shares of the company were last seen trading 1.6% higher during morning deals.
Takeover speculation
The downturn of recent years has turned BP into the subject of intense takeover speculation, with some questioning a potential future merger with domestic rival Shell. For its part, Shell in late June said that it had “no intention” of making an offer.
UAE oil giant ADNOC, as well as U.S. oil giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron, are among some of the names that have also been touted as possible suitors.
Asked whether the company had been approached by any potential merger partners amid ongoing takeover speculation, Auchincloss said BP is focused on growth.
“That’s what is going to drive the share price up for shareholders,” he added.
CEO of BP Murray Auchincloss speaks during the CERAWeek oil summit in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2024.
Mark Felix | AFP | Getty Images
Maurizio Carulli, global energy analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said BP’s earnings were the company’s first positive quarterly results “in a very long time,” noting that “what is perhaps most encouraging” was the firm’s outperformance came despite a period of lower oil prices.
“The management team has clearly started delivering on the strategy reset announced a few months ago. There has been huge speculation of late on the fate of BP and whether or not a rival will look to take them out with a merger,” Carulli said.
“If positive results like this continue to be delivered, that speculation may just end up being a blip in BP’s long and storied history,” he added.
Asset review
BP, which is under intense pressure to improve profitability from the likes of activist investor Elliott, noted that it would initiate a further cost review of its assets — mere weeks before Albert Manifold joins BP’s board from Sept. 1 and as chair from Oct. 1.
Asked for further details of this strategic review, Auchincloss told CNBC: “If you think back to 2020, we reduced our costs by 25%, and in 2024 we announced another program to reduce our costs by another 20%. That’s the $4-5 billion that I referenced earlier.”
“If we can achieve that, that will take us to around top quartile in the sector, but I don’t think that is enough,” Auchincloss said.
BP’s net debt came in at $26.04 billion at the end of the second quarter, down from nearly $27 billion compared to the first three months of the year.
“We need to keep driving safely to be the very best in the sector we can be. And that’s why we’re focused on another review to try to drive us toward best in class inside the sector,” Auchincloss added.
In a move that helps the brand duck protectionist anti-Chinese tariffs, Volvo Cars has switched production of its award-winning EX30 models destined for US roads from its Zhangjiakou plant in China to the Ghent facility in Belgium.
Volvo EX30 production began in the company’s Ghent factory back in April, but those first cars were earmarked for the Swedish domestic and European export markets, but that move wasn’t primarily motivated by avoiding tariffs. As Electrive reports, the company seemed happy enough to continue importing its small electric crossover from China and accepting the new 28.8% tariffs (up from 10%), but the wait times to get the vehicles shipped in from China was imply too long.
In 2024, Swedish and German buyers had to wait up to eight months for their EX30 in some cases, according to Volvo Cars’ European boss, Arek Nowinski, per Automotive News. Once production in Ghent is fully up to speed, however, wait times should be cut to about 90 days. Those wait times, and the price hike associated with the tariffs, have hurt sales of the originally Chinese-made Volvo EV. In 2024, for example, the EX30 ranked third in European EV sales, but slipped out of the top 10 first half of 2025.
“The car is now being built in Europe, which means faster delivery times,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson to Automotive News. “We should return to the sales and market share figures for the EX30 that we had before the introduction of tariffs.”
Coming to Staying in America
The EX30’s switch to Ghent is good news for American fans of the compact, lickety-quick Volvo EV. Now that it’s no longer exclusively made in China, Volvo has decided to give it a stay of execution as it revamps its US product lineup to better align with market trends (read: SUVs) and the changing political landscape (read: tariffs and inflation).
The reason? The Made in China version of the EX30 would virtually unsellable in the US due to the implementation of 147% tariffs on vehicles imported from China. Vehicles imported from Europe, meanwhile, carry just 15% tariffs, keeping the EX30 in a competitive price bracket.
Expect to see both Ghent and South Carolina play an increasingly large role in Volvo’s US product mix – at least for the next three-odd years.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Cars, Automotive News, via Electrive.
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New filings have revealed that BYD is about to release a ridiculous 3,000 hp electric supercar: the Yangwang U9 Track Edition.
BYD already shocked the world when it launched the Yangwang U9, its first all-electric supercar.
It featured four advanced electric motors with a combined power of nearly 1,300 horsepower. The U9 can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.36 seconds.
With a motor at each wheel and a highly advanced electric-air suspension, the U9 can turn on itself and even jump over potholes.
But that was only the beginning.
Based on a new filing with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BYD is preparing to launch a new ‘Track Edition’ of the Yangwang U9:
When an automaker releases a “track” version of a car, it typically primarily features body changes for better aerodynamic performance, adding downforce, and it will also often feature bigger brakes.
The Yangwang U9 ‘Track Edition’ appears to feature all that… and much more.
The filing reveals that BYD updated the motors at each wheel to a new 555 kW motor. That’s a higher-performing motor than in most performance electric vehicles. The U9 Track Edition has four of them for a total of 2,220 kW (3,019 hp).
I would have thought that this was a typo if it wasn’t for the insane electric vehicles coming out of China these days.
Here are a few pictures from the MIIT filing:
There are a lot of performance specs that are not included in the MIIT filing. Therefore, it will be interesting to see when the vehicle is fully unveiled and BYD reveals what kind of performance it can achieve with 3,000 hp packed in 4 electric motors.
Here are a few other features mentioned in the filing:
Standard features:
- 20-inch wheels with 325/35 R20 tyres
- Carbon-fibre roof
- Large fixed carbon-fibre rear wing
- Rear diffuser with adjustable blades for aerodynamic optimisation
Optional aerodynamic parts:
- Standard or enhanced carbon-fibre front splitter
- Electric rear wing
Electrek’s Take
How are they going to keep that thing from flying away? Seriously.
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