BP rebounds into $5.62-billion net profit

British energy giant BP rebounded into net profit in the second quarter of 2011, aided by high oil prices, after a huge loss last year after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, it said on Tuesday. Earnings after taxation hit $5.62 billion (3.87 billion euros) in the three months to June, BP said in a results statement. That compared with a vast loss of $17.15 billion in the second quarter of 2010, when it was slammed by spiralling costs from the spill. Production sank 10.7 percent to 3.43 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, which mostly reflected the suspension of drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico. Output was also hit as the group sold of $25 billion of assets to help foot the bill for the disaster. But the company was boosted by high oil prices, which soared during the reporting period amid violent unrest in the crude-producing Middle East and North Africa region. The average price of London Brent crude oil rocketed by almost 50 percent to stand at $117.04 per barrel in the second quarter, compared with $78.24 percent in the same period of last year. Chief Executive Bob Dudley said that the group was making speedy progress as it sought to draw a line under the Gulf spill disaster. "BP is making rapid progress against our priorities. In February we said we expected 2011 to be a year of consolidation as we reset the focus of the company," Dudley said in the earnings release. "This is going well, while it is having the expected near-term impact on our volumes and costs." Total revenues meanwhile soared by 39 percent to $103.84 billion in the second quarter, compared with $75.87 billion last time around. BP added Tuesday that it continued to meet costs in the Gulf coast and has now paid out $6.8 billion in claims and government payouts to fund economic and environmental restoration. And the group revealed that total clean-up costs now stand at $40.7 billion, down from previous guidance of $41.3 billion. The group took a $600-million credit after reaching settlements with MOEX USA Corporation, a US subsidiary of Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co which has a 10-percent stake in the Macondo well project, and contractor Weatherford. In order to meet its own compensation costs, BP is seeking to raise a total of $30 billion by the end of the year. So far, it has sold assets in Argentina, Colombia, Egypt, the United States, Venezuela and Vietnam. American Dudley took over as chief executive in the wake of the disaster after his predecessor Tony Hayward resigned amid criticism over his handling of the spill. Dudley has sought to move on from the catastrophe with a major shake-up that created a powerful safety division and overhauled the group's structure. However, he failed in his attempt at a historic tie-up with Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft earlier this year. BP and Rosneft signed a historic Arctic exploration and share-swap deal in January as Dudley sought to tap into energy assets elsewhere. But the deal collapsed in May over protests by BP's Russian partners in its local joint venture and the subsequent failure of efforts to buy out the unhappy shareholders. BP was ravaged after last year's explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig which resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused millions of barrels of oil to spew into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The blast on April 20, 2010, sparked what was widely regarded as the worst environmental catastrophe in US history.