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LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) - BP's oil trading businessmade a small loss in the second quarter, Chief Financial OfficerBrian Gilvary told Reuters on Tuesday, while overall profit beatexpectations.
The world's biggest oil traders have counted hefty lossesafter a surprise doubling in the price discount of U.S. lightcrude to benchmark Brent <WTCLc1-LCOc1> in just a month, assurging U.S. production upended the market.
"It was a tough market to call. We're certainly not the onlytrading group that lost money in the second quarter," he said,adding that oil trading, which gets reported through BP'sdownstream business, had made losses twice before in the lastfive years.
"There were some specific positions around some particularlydifficult market calls and we got the call wrong, it's assimple as that."
Over the first half, oil trading made a profit, Gilvarysaid.
"It was about one specific position in one book where theymade the wrong market call and actually they did a very good jobof exiting that position," he said, declining to give furtherdetails.
Trading desks of oil major BP and merchants Vitol, Gunvor and Trafigura haverecorded losses in the tens of millions of dollars each as aresult of the "whipsaw" move when the spread reached more than$11.50 a barrel in June, insiders familiar with theirperformance told Reuters.
Shell Chief Financial Officer Jessica Uhl said lastweek that Shell's oil trading profits fell short of expectationsin the first half of the year.
Gilvary said he expected oil prices to stay within a $5range around current prices for the next six months.(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla, editing by Louise Heavens)
