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Oil giant BP lowers growth target
LONDON, England -- British oil giant BP has lowered its growth targets for this year as tropical storms and other technical problems cut into already weaker production levels. BP, Europe's biggest company by market capitalisation, on Wednesday lowered its growth projection for 2002 to between 4.5 and 5.0 percent from a previous target of 5.5 percent. The company also said oil and gas output grew 4 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, down from a forecast of 5 percent issued last month. BP registered growth of 5.5 percent in the second quarter. Despite missing its 2002 target, the company said still expects previously stated annual production growth of 5.5 percent from 2000 to 2005. But 80 percent of BP's profit comes from oil and gas production. BP said tropical storm Isidore and Hurricane Lili battered the company's offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico -- cutting 1.4 million barrels a day of U.S. oil production in September -- while technical problems mainly in the North Sea and Alaska also hampered production. These problems these problems would have "some knock on effects into the fourth quarter,'' the company said in a trading statement. BP, the world's third-largest publicly traded oil company, has seen its profits amid the worst refining slump in a decade. In the past year, it has been hit along with other major oil and gas companies -- such as rivals Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch/Shell Group -- by falling prices as U.S. demand for heating oil slowed due a mild winters and the global economic slowdown. BP (BP) shares fell 1 percent to 431 pence in midday London trading on Wednesday.
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