The world's second-largest listed oil firm said on Tuesday its closely-watched adjusted replacement cost profit, which strips out one-off items as well as gains or losses from changes in the value of fuel inventories, rose 27 percent to $5.33 billion.
The result compared with an average forecast given in a Reuters poll of nine analysts of $5.39 billion, with individual forecasts ranging from $5.0 billion to $5.6 billion.
Profits would have been much higher had it not been for the impact of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, which shut in production of 145,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the quarter, BP said.
BP also said its $1 billion Thunder Horse oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which was originally scheduled to come on stream later this year, will now not start production until the second half of 2006.
The semi-submersible platform, 25 percent owned by Exxon Mobil, is the largest facility of its kind in the world and was due to produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day at full capacity. But in July it was discovered to be tilting precariously after Hurricane Dennis hit the Gulf of Mexico. BP subsequently pushed back its late 2005 start-up target but investors still hoped the delay would be six months at the worst.
Repairs to the platform are expected to cost around $250 million, a BP spokesman said.
The main driver of the profit increase was a bumper result at BP's upstream oil and gas production division, with record oil prices during the quarter more than compensating for a fall in production, largely due to US hurricanes.
Similarly, record refining margins more than compensated for storm-related refinery stoppages on the US Gulf coast.
However, BP said production at its Texas City refinery would not now restart until late in the fourth quarter, with initial gasoline production due in December. Dealers had expected the refinery to restart in October or November.
A gloomy trading statement made by BP earlier this month, in which the firm flagged the hurricane effects, poor marketing margins and a failure to capture the full benefits of soaring benchmark oil price rises, led some analysts to question whether profitability had peaked for oil companies.
However, BP Chief Executive John Browne said on Tuesday: "Prices are expected to be well supported into the winter ... refining margins are likely to remain high."