Bernard sends note to employees on 3Q 2021 results

Bernard has sent a message to everyone at bp with the announcement of the 3Q 2021 results

Hello everyone,

We’ve just announced bp’s results for the third quarter – and, once again, we are performing while transforming. Your hard work and commitment are really paying off – thank you.

On safety, I do want to highlight that we saw a rise in incidents in the quarter – an important reminder to all of us to stay focused on safe and reliable operations. 

Financially, our underlying profit is up at $3.3 billion. Our net debt is down for the sixth quarter and we’re generating a great deal of cash – $17.5 billion for the year so far – that’s around double the same point last year. Rising commodity prices certainly helped, but I am most pleased that, quarter by quarter, our business is simply running well.

It means we can reward our shareholders – including you – with a further $1.25 billion of buybacks planned AND, at the same time, continue to invest in our transformation. 

The following are a few highlights of progress from the quarter. 

• In hydrocarbons – we hit our target of 900,000 new barrels of oil and gas by 2021 – we set this goal in 2016. Taken as a whole, across 34 projects in 11 countries over six years, we’ve delivered on schedule and around 15% under budget, which is quite simply off the charts.
• We’re growing convenience & mobility – with record margins for the year to date; a 45% increase in electrons sold for EV charging (compared with last quarter); and our first Jio-bp mobility station opening its doors to customers just outside Mumbai in India.
• And we’re scaling low carbon – adding another 2GW to our renewables pipeline, so we now have 23GW of options aiming for 8-10% returns.  
  

A ‘loss’ you shouldn’t worry about

Given all the positives, why might you be seeing reports that we made a headline loss? I can tell you it has nothing to do with our business performance. 

It is purely down to accounting rules that require us to record the value of our Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) contracts at a different time to hedges we put in place to protect us against swings in gas prices. It is complex – but this is nothing more than a timing issue, which will unwind over time. Most importantly, it doesn’t affect our strong underlying performance.  

Let’s make it four in a row

We have now delivered three strong quarters in a row this year. We have to keep pushing to get better (you can be sure our competitors are). But I could not be more pleased about the momentum we are building. There’s a great wave of confidence in bp right now – I’ve heard it first-hand on my recent visits to the teams in Russia and the US.

We are doing what we said we would do – generating significant cash to strengthen our finances, grow distributions to our shareholders, and invest in our strategic transformation.

In short, performing while transforming. Let’s keep it going – and see if we can make it four out of four for 2021.

For now, thanks for all your amazing work – and please continue looking out for each another.

As ever, let me know if you have any feedback. 

Thank you for all you do for bp.

Bernard