BP is having a good time but it has not won my heart. It will not win the heart or me or many of the readers of this blog who are furious that this company, that carries our country’s name, refuses to meet its pension promises.

Feel free to search on “BP” at the top right of this page to follow the years of underpayment of increases to pensioners who worked and earned deferred pay before 1997. The promise of payment of these payments will have started 30 years ago in a few months but there are still many BP pensioners who are shortchanged of wages in retirement granted them.

This is a free link to the story of BP benefiting from the Middle East energy shock

The good news is that the debt that BP found itself in is fast disappearing

BP has pledged to keep cutting debt and to “get fit” for a downturn in oil prices, after reporting record quarterly profits on the back of the energy shock triggered by the Iran war.

To me,”getting fit” means restoring its reputation which it is doing with the bankers

The windfall from this year’s market turbulence has so far helped BP cut its net debt by more than $10bn, or over 45 per cent, since Meg O’Neill took over as chief executive of the UK oil major in April.

The problems that BP has found itself are largely the result of irresponsibility for which it has been fined. As a force for good, BP has singularly failed.

It is now selling its stake in UK oil fields and moving to be the kind of company that a “fossil-free” investor like myself would want to re-invest in. With the $4bm US Biogas also for sale, it is possible to see BP a profitable business with a strong balance sheet by the end of the decade

On Friday (29th October) , BP said its net debt had fallen to $13.9bn and that it had also met its cost-reduction targets, adding that it would now focus on paying off its remaining penalties from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which amount to roughly $5bn.

None of its peers has built up this debt as its CFO  accepts

An improved culture…

Kate Thomson, BP’s chief financial officer, told the FT the company’s liabilities are still “materially” higher than its peers. “There is more to go on the balance sheet,” she said, ahead of setting out new financial targets in December.

Well, Kate Thompson, I hope the new financial targets you set in December include meeting promises BP made before it sunk into the moral morass that nearly sunk it.

BP is still awaiting a $6bn payment after it agreed to sell a stake in its Castrol lubricants business. It previously said it would allocate all the proceeds to paying down debt.

When the $6bn you are owed by selling your share in Castrol is banked, there can be no financial excuse for paying your moral debts to those who created your wealth.

Here are Kate Thompson’s next steps

“We are very much in the mode of get fit,” she said. “We are getting a bit of a head start on the balance sheet work with the price environment that we are in; the other activities will take time,” she added, pointing to getting the right mix of assets, improving performance, capital allocation and culture”.