London-based BP said in a Regulatory News Service statement that the US$5.49bn result excluded gains from holding oil inventories. Including profit from holding oil inventories, first-quarter earnings were US$6.6bn, compared with US$4.91bn a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue was US$79.8bn, up 16% from the US$69bn reported a year earlier.
Excluding what BP called one-time items of US$535m, first-quarter profit was US$4.96bn.
The company said in March that it expected a one-time, pre-tax gain of about US$1bn for the first quarter because of the sales of its stakes in Norway’s Ormen Lange gas field and the United Kingdom Interconnector gas pipeline.
The results are the first for BP under the International Financial Reporting Standards adopted by European Union companies.
The better BP result indicates rising profits are also likely for fellow majors Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and ChevronTexaco when they report quarterly results later this week.
United States oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum has also reported increased quarterly profits, with net income for the first three months of the year increasing from US$487m for the first 2004 quarter to US$846m now.
Overall, Occidental's sales totaled US$3.3bn for the quarter, up from US$2.6bn in the same period a year ago.
Income from its oil and gas business rose 47% to US$1.3bn.
Oil and gas production was essentially flat at 565,000 barrels of oil per day, with the company maintaining its outlook for production over the year to average 600,000 bopd.
