analysts have boosted their price targets for oil and gas giant bp as it reported a jump in profits driven both by the rise in prices thanks to the russian invasion of ukraine as well as gas trading the oil and gas company said its underlying operating profit jumped to 815 billion from 332 billion well ahead of the 61 billion expected by analysts who have said bp bp bp is in “increasingly strong shape” going forward its unit called gas and low carbon energy saw its underlying profit jump to 624 billion from 181 billion helped by the gas trading in its earnings release to the market bp announced a 25 billion handout to shareholders via a share buyback taking the full year total to 85 billion citi analyst alastair syme said results were driven mostly by an “exceptional result from gas trading and higher gas realizations” syme put his 12month price target for bp at 440 pence “the exceptional gas trading result is particularly impressive given the freeport lng outage” rbc analyst biraj borkhataria noted to clients on tuesday referring to the fire at the texas lng gas plant earlier in june he placed an outperform rating on bp with a price target of 550 pence bernstein analyst oswald clint said the results were “handsomely beating consensus and our estimates by 30” he reiterated an outperform rating with “33 potential upside to our 640 pence price target” bp also reported a 21 billion loss for the third quarter down to a 101 billion accounting adjustment from changes in forward gas prices in the second quarter net debt fell to 22 billion down from 32 billion it also generated 52 billion in free cash flow which is up from 33 billion in the same period last year bp said it would pay 25 billion in uk windfall tax this year meanwhile rival shell shel hasn’t paid anything as it said it had invested millions in the uk adding that it doesn’t expect to pay the tax until early next year new prime minister rishi sunak brought in a windfall tax in may when he was chancellor which he said would raise £5 billion from taxing oil and gas companies in its first year in a call with analysts paul cheng at scotiabank asked chief financial officer murray auchincloss about its eu estimates for windfall taxes “in the eu i’m afraid i can’t give you an estimate it’s just not certain enough yet” auchincloss replied “we understand it’s a very difficult time for our society right now and we understand why people focus on our global profits” he added executives said the results reflect bp’s effort to continue to “perform while transforming” “we remain focused on helping to solve the energy trilemma – secure affordable and lower carbon energy we are providing the oil and gas the world needs today – while at the same time – investing to accelerate the energy transition” said chief executive bernard looney looney also highlighted the firm’s 41 billion acquisition of archaea energy as its most recent step in its “strategic transformation of bp” for the next quarter bp said it expects upstream production to be slightly higher than 2021 its gulf of mexico oil spill payments are expected to hit 14 billion pretax “the company is in increasingly strong shape enabling it to pursue its longer term ambitions of becoming an integrated energy company” said richard hunter head of markets at interactive investor hunter added that bp’s transition is likely to be a “multidecade” change that is currently in its early stages