BP Plc, Europe’s second-largest oil company by market value, said production fell for a sixth quarter on start-up delays in the Gulf of Mexico and reduced crude flow at its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, Bloomberg reports.
Fourth-quarter output fell 5 percent to 3.82 million barrels a day of oil and gas from 4.022 million in the year-earlier period, London-based BP said on Tuesday in a Regulatory News Service statement. Year-on-year production last rose in the second quarter of 2005.
Pipelines leaks and corrosion forced BP to slow pumping from Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field, during the second half of 2006, hurting plans to boost supply by an average 4 percent a year. The reputation of BP and Chief Executive Officer John Browne has been further battered by U.S. safety regulator criticisms of an earlier refinery explosion.
(Bloomberg News, 09/01/2007)