BP earnings q4 2018

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A BP company logo at a gas station in London, U.K.

BP reported stronger-than-anticipated full-year profits on Tuesday, citing a strong operating performance across all business segments.

The British oil giant said its underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, came in at $12.7 billion in 2018. A company-provided consensus forecast had expected full-year underlying replacement cost profit of $11.88 billion.

“This is a really good quarter and, actually, the end of a great year for us,” Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday.

Here are the key takeaways:

• Underlying replacement cost profit came in at $3.5 billion in the final three months of 2018. That compares to $2.1 billion over the same period in 2017.
• Return on average capital employed was 11.2 percent, compared to 5.8 percent in 2017.
• Dividend of 10.25 cents per share announced for the fourth quarter — 2.5 percent higher than a year earlier.

Market participants saw large gains in energy shares over the first nine months of 2018 largely wiped out by a dramatic decline in crude futures in the fourth quarter.

The value of a barrel of Brent crude soared to a four-year high of $86 a barrel in early October, before collapsing to around $50 within weeks.

Crude futures have hovered around $60 a barrel so far this year.