By Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla
LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - BP suspended its share buyback programme as it wrote down around $4 billion in its renewables and biogas businesses ahead of a new CEO taking the helm, as it reported quarterly profit that met expectations on Tuesday.
BP, whose new CEO Meg O'Neill will start in April, said it would invest the excess cash in oil and gas projects where it expects better returns.
"The move to pause the buyback is the right long-term call given the relatively
weak balance sheet and emphasis on de-leveraging," said RBC analyst Biraj Borkhataria.
Shares sank 5.4% in morning trading, compared with a 0.9% dip in a broader index of European energy companies.
PAUSES BUYBACKS TO LOWER DEBT
Analysts had raised the prospect of buyback programmes shrinking, especially at European majors, amid lower oil and gas prices. Norway's Equinor slashed its buyback programme by 70% last week, while Shell and Exxon have held firm on their buybacks.
BP repurchased shares worth $750 million over the last three months, having bought back shares every quarter since the second quarter of 2021, according to LSEG data.
The oil major trimmed its net debt to $22 billion from $26 billion in the previous quarter, and reiterated a targeted amount of $14 billion-$18 billion by 2027.
BP's fourth-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, or adjusted net income, was $1.54 billion, up 32% from a year earlier.
BP RETURNS FOCUS TO OIL AND GAS
A year ago under then-CEO Murray Auchincloss, BP announced a strategy reset back to hydrocarbons, saying the move would improve profitability after an ill-fated foray into renewables by predecessor Bernard Looney.
BP estimated that its Brazilian Bumerangue discovery - its biggest in 25 years - holds 8 billion barrels of liquids in place, split equally between oil and condensate. It said it plans to drill appraisal wells around the end of the year.
BP had previously flagged up to $5 billion in impairments and, on Tuesday, listed its solar unit Lightsource bp, U.S. biogas unit Archaea and offshore wind businesses as the main reasons. BP bought Archaea in 2022 for $4.1 billion.
The firm has said it wants to sell a stake in solar power group Lightsource bp, has spun off its offshore wind business into joint venture JERA Nex BP and abandoned plans to build a biofuel plant in Amsterdam and hydrogen plants in Australia and Britain.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Joe Bavier and Bernadette Baum)
