LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Energy major BP guided for higher third-quarter production on Tuesday, but flagged a weaker oil trading result and lower gas prices.
In a brief update on trading, the blue chip said reported upstream production was on track to be higher than the previous three months, in both oil production and operations.

It had previously guided for upstream production in the third quarter to be slightly lower than in the second quarter.

Gas production was also higher during the period.

Oil prices, meanwhile, rose, with Brent crude averaging $69.13 per barrel, compared to $67.88 in the previous quarter.

However, US gas Henry Hub prices averaged $3.07 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), down on $3.44 mmBtu in the second quarter.

Overall, BP noted that the results were likely to be "influenced" by seasonally higher volumes, with broadly flat fuels margins.

It also predicted stronger realised margins, in the range of $300m to $400m, but a "significantly lower" level of turnaround activity, partly offset by seasonal effects of environmental compliance costs and the impact of unplanned Whiting outage, due to exceptional weather conditions.

"The oil trading result is expected to be weak," it said.

BP is due to publish third-quarter numbers on 4 November.

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