London, Feb 10, 2026, 07:53 GMT
- BP put its share buyback program on ice, redirecting surplus cash toward shoring up the balance sheet.
- BP posted $1.54 billion in underlying replacement cost profit for the fourth quarter, but impairments pushed the company into a net loss under IFRS accounting.
- Net debt wrapped up 2025 at $22.2 billion. Meg O’Neill is set to step into the CEO role in April.
BP hit the brakes on its share buyback program Tuesday, opting instead to channel extra cash toward trimming debt and boosting oil-and-gas spending, after quarterly underlying profit numbers landed largely in line with forecasts. The company also flagged roughly $4.2 billion in impairments and disclosed it had unloaded a minority stake in its U.S. onshore oil assets for $1.5 billion.
The suspension of buybacks is a big deal—investors have counted on those returns as a cushion when prices weaken, and BP has turned to share repurchases to help calm nerves after years spent changing direction. BP stock is up around 9% year-to-date, ahead of European competitors Shell and TotalEnergies, but it’s still trailing ExxonMobil in the U.S., according to the Financial Times.
BP scrapped its target of handing back 30%–40% of operating cash flow to shareholders, signaling tighter payouts as it looks to bring down leverage. Chief financial officer Kate Thomson told analysts the board would “fully allocate excess cash” to shoring up the balance sheet. Net debt is set to close out 2025 at $22.2 billion, while organic capital spending for the year is slated to fall to $13.6 billion. Investing.com
BP’s preferred profit gauge, “underlying replacement cost” profit, omits one-off charges and inventory swings—a common metric among Europe’s oil majors aiming for a clearer snapshot of trading performance. But under IFRS standards, BP posted a $3.4 billion loss for the fourth quarter, after booking roughly $4 billion in impairments. Chief executive Thomson pointed to transition businesses, like biogas and renewables, as the main sources of those charges.
Interim CEO Carol Howle framed the buyback suspension as just one piece of a larger overhaul: asset sales, dialing back on capital outlays, and a sharper target for cost cuts are all in play. “We are taking decisive action to high-grade our portfolio and strengthen our company,” she said, underscoring the $20 billion disposal initiative and a cost-savings target now stretched to $5.5 billion–$6.5 billion by the close of 2027. Investing.com
BP’s U.S. shares slipped roughly 3% before the bell following the announcement, RTTNews reported.
Heading into the report, analysts polled by GuruFocus were looking for revenue to come in near $29.7 billion, with earnings at $0.15 a share. Cash flow and the pace of returns to shareholders were center stage for investors this time.
BP aims to bring net debt down sharply, with a target of as much as $18 billion cut by the end of 2027, according to MarketWatch. The company is reworking its spending plans and looking to shore up its balance sheet.
BP is targeting $9 billion to $10 billion in divestment proceeds for 2026, with roughly $6 billion set to come from selling a 65% stake in Castrol—most of that expected later in the year. For upstream, the company projects a slight dip in production in 2026 and plans to spend between $13 billion and $13.5 billion on capex.
The company highlighted a handful of operational milestones meant to underpin its strategy—seven big project launches set for 2025, an uptick in its reserves replacement ratio, and a rough early estimate suggesting the Bumerangue find could contain about 8 billion barrels of liquids in place. Thomson, though, cautioned the figure is still highly uncertain.
Still, BP’s bet is tied up with oil and gas prices and whether it can pull off its deals. If crude prices slide, asset sales stall, or low-carbon arms take more writedowns, paying down debt could drag—and any buyback comeback gets pushed out. The shares, in that case, stay vulnerable to those “cash return” yardsticks investors use across the industry.
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