Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Who said capitalism was dead
BP quarterly profit hits record $10bn
BP was at the centre of a huge row yesterday after unveiling record quarterly profits of $10bn (£6.4bn) - a rise of 148%
Posted by matt_the_hat @ 09:03 AM (795 views)
3 thoughts on “Who said capitalism was dead”
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51ck-6-51x says:
Good – at least one of Britain’s businesses is making some profit. Maybe the govt. should pump some money into them and weapons R&D and manufactures so we can stick to what we’re good at and really prepare for the tough times ahead.
Kruador says:
When the crude oil futures market gets manipulated by the speculators in a positive direction, the oil companies say ‘thanks very much’ and push up the cost of contracted oil deliveries, even when just accounting between production and refining divisions. The street price of petrol rises even though the actual cost of production is unchanged. Result, loads of profit.
You have to remember that oil was trading at over $100/barrel for the whole of this quarter and hit $142 (Brent)/$147 (WTI) in mid-July. Since then the falls have been precipitously steep – these profits won’t last for long.
Kruador says:
While on this theme, traffic levels in the USA dropped 5.6% year-on-year in August 2008. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/tvtw/08augtvt/index.cfm. That’s why BP and other oil companies have built up a lot of surplus inventory of refined products. The refining division made an operating loss, but is shown as a large profit in the results due to the projected future value of the surplus. However, the value of that surplus will continue to fall.