BP announced the discovery of a major new oil and gas field off eastern Brazil at the same time it released surprise financial results showing it made a better-than-expected $2.35 billion profit in the second quarter. File photo by Adam Vaughan/EPA-EFE

Aug. 5 (UPI) — British energy giant BP announced Tuesday its biggest oil and gas find in decades in the South Atlantic, amid a pivot back to its fossil fuel roots and away from renewable energy.

Gordon Birrell, BP’s executive vice president for production and operations, said the discovery of the deposits, at the Bumerangue block in the Santos Basin, 250 miles off the east coast of Brazil, was “BP’s largest in 25 years” and that the company was looking at constructing a hub to extract the oil and gas.

BP said it had not found a field of a similar magnitude since the Shah Deniz gas field in the Caspian Sea in Central Asia in 1999 and comes as the company has made a series of other finds, including in Namibia, Egypt, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

“This is another success in what has been an exceptional year so far for our exploration team,” said Birrell.

The announcement came as the company released results for the second quarter showing net profit fell 14.6% from the April to June period in 2024 to $2.35 billion.

However, the performance easily exceeded the expectations of analysts who had forecast BP’s earnings would come in at just $1.81 billion, so soon after a major “reset” aimed at reviving the company’s fortunes that it announced in February.

The turnaround plan centered on boosting investors’ faith in the company with a dramatic cut in planned investments in renewable energy projects in favor of ploughing billions of dollars a year more into the traditional oil and gas business.

To that end, Tuesday’s announcement included a rise in its quarterly dividend from 8 cents to 8.32 cents and that BP would keep its share buyback program at $750 million for the second quarter, with CEO Murray Auchincloss pledging a “thorough review” to ensure the firm was “maximizing shareholder value moving forward.”

“Inside the upstream, we’ve had tremendous performance, along with record operating efficiency [and] along with starting up five new major projects,” Auchincloss told CNBC.

He also hailed the Santos Basin discovery, saying he was “very optimistic” about it.

BP’s share price on the London Stock Exchange rose as high as $5.55 after the results were released before falling back slightly to $5.47 in afternoon trade.