BP Share News (BP.)

(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened broadly higher on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 staying above the 7,700 point mark following positive earnings from oil heavyweight BP, while Centrica fell sharply as the electricity and gas utility cut its dividend and prepared to say goodbye to its chief executive and energy production business. The FTSE 100 was up 15.18 points, or 0.2% at 7,701.79. The FTSE 250 was up 29.54 points, or 0.1% at 19,916.24. The AIM All-Share was flat at 929.47.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.3% at 13,085.74. The Cboe UK 250 was flat at 17,754.89, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was flat at 11,101.49.In European equities, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.1% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was down 0.2%. On the London Stock Exchange, BP was the best large-cap performer, up 2.9% after the oil major reported a "resilient" second-quarter performance, with profit climbing sharply on the prior three months.Underlying replacement cost profit, BP's preferred metric, for the three months to June rose 19% on the first quarter to USD2.81 billion, though it was 0.4% lower year-on-year.BP's underlying RC profit for the six months to June was USD5.17 billion, down 4.4% on the year before. Reported RC profit fell 7.4% to USD3.87 billion in the half year, while interim profit attributable to shareholders declined 9.7% to USD4.76 billion. BP is paying a quarterly dividend of 10.25 US cents, the same as for the first quarter. BP returned USD125 million to shareholders over the first half via share buybacks. Fellow oil major Royal Dutch Shell's 'A' and 'B' shares were up 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively, benefiting from a positive read-across. Shell will report its own interim results on Thursday. JD Sports Fashion was up 0.7% after RBC Capital started coverage of the sportswear retailer with an Outperform rating. At the other end of the large-cap index, Centrica was comfortably the worst performer, down 10% after the British Gas parent took the "regrettable" decision to slash its treasured dividend and announced that Chief Executive Iain Conn will step down next year. For the six months ended June, the FTSE 100-listed utility sank to a GBP569 million pretax loss from a GBP415 million profit the year prior. This was after revenue fell 4.4% to GBP11.57 billion from GBP12.10 billion the year before.Profit performance was hurt by exceptional costs surging to GBP845 million from GBP211 million the year prior. This was primarily due to rising restructuring, pension and impairment costs. Centrica more than halved its interim dividend per share to 1.50 pence from 3.60p a year prior.For the full year, Centrica has rebased its payout to 5.0p per share from the 12.0p paid the year before, with the cut attributed to changes regarding the UK default tariff price cap, additional pension deficit contributions and restructuring charges.Centrica also announced that Conn will leave in 2020 as the company prepares to move into a "new phase" following the proposed sale of its non-customer facing units. The firm expects Conn to remain at the firm until "at least" the 2020 annual general meeting of the company. In 2019, this took place in mid-May.The 'Big Six' energy provider also revealed plans to sell its oil and gas business.Reckitt Benckiser was down 4.5% after the household goods maker cut its full year like-for-like sales guidance amid a weaker-than-expected start to the year.For the six months ended June, pretax profit widened 14% to GBP1.26 billion from GBP1.11 billion a year prior. This was after revenue rose 1.6% to GBP6.24 billion from GBP6.14 billion.Reckitt - which owns brands such as Dettol, Durex and Strepsils - proposed a 73.0 pence per share interim dividend, up 3.5% from 70.5p the year prior. However, Reckitt said sales growth in the first half was below expectations and cut its annual like-for-like sales guidance to a range of 2% to 3%, from a previously expected target of 3% to 4%. Fresnillo was down 4.9% after the Mexican gold miner said lower production and gold prices led to a decline in revenue and a far steeper fall in profit.Fresnillo's revenue for the six months to June declined 10% to USD1.00 billion, with pretax profit from continuing operations dropping dramatically to USD54.1 million from USD323.0 million a year before. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation fell 46% to USD307.9 million.The worsened results were due to a 7.1% fall in gold production to 432,417 ounces in the half-year, and a 10% dip in silver output to 27.6 million ounces, which had been reported earlier in July.In addition, Fresnillo slashed its interim dividend by 76%, to USD0.026 per share from USD0.107 a year before. The pound was quoted at USD1.2124 early Tuesday, down from USD1.2224 at the London equities close Monday. Sterling hit its lowest level in two years of USD1.2119 overnight, amid no-deal Brexit fears following a hard-line stance from new UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Societe Generale's Kit Juckes commented: "UK PM Boris Johnson's position that there is no point talking about the exit deal with the EU until the Irish border backstop arrangement is removed, reflects his inability to get the deal in its current format through Parliament. His hard-line stance is seeing the Conservatives win voters back from the Brexit Party, according to recent polls, and he needs either to get a deal from the EU that he can get through Parliament or win back enough Brexiteer votes to be able to win an election. "Either way, he is committed to a hard-line stance towards the EU that will of course, be rebuffed aggressively. In the process, sterling moves to the bottom of its post-referendum ranges and re-tests historical trade-weighted lows."The economic calendar on Tuesday has inflation readings from Germany at 1300 BST and the US personal consumption expenditure index at 1330 BST - the core reading of this is the US Fed Reserve's preferred gauge of inflation. The Fed's two-day policy meeting starts on Tuesday.The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.4%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.4%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 0.3%.The Bank of Japan decided at its July meeting on Tuesday to keep its ultra-loose monetary policy despite growing pressure to introduce more easing measures.The BoJ maintained its short-term interest rate target at -0.1%. It also left its guidance on interest rates unchanged.The central bank has been under pressure to enhance its monetary easing policy as other central banks have indicated they will cut interest rates to prop up growth. However, the bank vowed to provide more easing steps if downside risks to economic activity and prices are significant especially due to overseas developments.In the US on Monday, Wall Street ended mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.1%, S&P 500 down 0.2% and Nasdaq Composite down 0.4%. The US Federal Reserve begins its two-day policy-setting meeting on Tuesday.Top Chinese and US officials are set to meet face to face for the first time since May on Tuesday in an attempt to resolve the US-China trade war, although there was little expectation for progress to be made.US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were due to meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Shanghai for two days of talks.The meeting follows a trade war detente brokered by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka last month.