BP has pleased investors with forecast-beating quarterly profit.<br /><br />It also announced an increased dividend, plus plans for additional asset sales, and a promise to limit spending. <br /><br />That meets the desires of shareholders in the sector who are worried about rising costs hitting their returns and want spending controlled and spare cash paid back to them. <br /><br />“The stockmarket doesn’t want the oil majors to spend money. Instead, investors want their cash back. And BP has obliged,” said analyst Neill Morton of Investec.<br /><br />Rosneft, the Kremlin-controlled firm into which BP folded its Russian business last year in exchange for an almost twenty percent stake, accounted for over a quarter of its profit in the quarter.
