The British energy company, bp, reported a loss for the fourth quarter (Q4) 2025 worth $3.4 billion, a significant decline from the $1.2 billion profit recorded in the third quarter. Following these results, the board has decided to suspend share buybacks and fully allocate excess cash to accelerate the strengthening of the company’s balance sheet, according to a press release by the company.

Consequently, bp has retired its previous guidance to distribute approximately 30–40% of its operating cash flow to shareholders. The reported quarterly loss was heavily impacted by a net adverse impact of adjusting items totaling $4.3 billion, which included around $4 billion in post-tax impairments primarily related to transition businesses in the gas and low carbon energy segment.

Financially, operating cash flow for the quarter stood at $7.6 billion, while net debt was reduced to $22.2 billion, primarily driven by approximately $3.6 billion in divestment proceeds. For the full year, operating cash flow reached $24.5 billion. Looking ahead, the company has set its 2026 capital expenditure budget in the range of $13–13.5 billion, reflecting a continued emphasis on capital efficiency.

The underlying replacement cost (RC) profit for Q4 was $1.5 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in the previous quarter. This underlying result reflects lower upstream price realizations, an adverse production mix, and lower refinery throughput due to higher turnaround activity and the temporary impact of an outage at the Whiting refinery. For the full year 2025, bp delivered an underlying RC profit of $7.5 billion against what it described as a weaker oil price environment.

Segment analysis shows that the gas and low carbon energy division recorded an RC loss before interest and tax of $2.2 billion for the quarter. Meanwhile, the oil production and operations segment saw its RC profit reach $1.7 billion, down from $2.1 billion in the third quarter.

In the downstream sector, the customers and products segment reported an RC profit of $1.4 billion, influenced by seasonally lower volumes and weaker midstream performance. Despite these pressures, bp maintained strong operational reliability, reporting record full-year upstream plant reliability of 96.1% and refining availability of 96.3%.

bp, one of the world’s largest integrated energy companies, remains focused on high-grading its portfolio, including its $20 billion disposal program and the expected proceeds from the recently announced agreement to sell a 65% stake in Castrol.