THE 71 per cent increase in first quarter profits achieved by BP provides a further sign the rise in oil prices since late 2016 has given a big boost to the oil majors.
Last week Royal Dutch Shell posted a 42% increase in first quarter earnings.
Both firms noted the part North Sea operations had played in their recent success.
Investors in the majors can expect to benefit from the oil price effect, with Shell and BP emphasising their priorities include increasing distributions to shareholders.
Such largesse will be regarded with mixed feelings in Scotland.
The North Sea supply chain has faced huge challenges amid retrenchment moves made by BP and Shell following the plunge in the oil price from 2014 to 2016.
Both shed hundreds of jobs.
With capital investment budgets set to remain under pressure, what the improvement in the oil firms’ trading fortunes will mean for the North Sea remains to be seen.
It is notable that Shell and BP approved their first North Sea projects for years in the first quarter.
But the projects look likely to be on a smaller scale than the giant developments West of Shetland the firms approved before the crude price slumped.
The last of these developments, Clair Ridge, is due to come onstream in the second half of this year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here