Making the most of a strong week, two of BP's divisional Executive Vice Presidents have between them sold 130,000 shares in the same week oil giant delivered a better-than-expected performance in the third quarter.

Mike Daly, the company's Executive Vice President of exploration, traded in 24,473 shares at 450p and 15,527 shares for 445p, earning a total of £179,224.

Andy Hopwood, the Executive Vice President of E&P Strategy & Integration, made three purchases of 30,000 shares for an average price of 445.65p each, pocketing £401,085 altogether.

The strong performance seen in the third quarter was driven by the refining (downstream) business, where underlying replacement cost profit before interest and tax improved to a record $3,004m from $1,129m in the preceding quarter and $1,666m in the corresponding period of 2011.

Adjusted replacement cost profit in the third quarter was $5.17bn, up from $3.69bn in the preceding quarter, although down from $5.46bn in the corresponding quarter of 2011. The quarterly dividend was hiked to nine cents from eight cents in the second quarter.


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