Oil major BP more than doubled its quarterly profit to $5.73bn (£4.3bn) as war between the US and Iran drove up oil prices, taking the combined earnings of the world's five biggest oil companies to about half a billion dollars a day.

The result, for the three months to June, was up from $2.35bn a year earlier and beat the $5.11bn analysts had expected, making it BP's highest quarterly profit since 2022, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices to records. The company also raised its dividend by 4 per cent to 8.66 cents a share.

The higher profits come as brent crude prices surged once again in recent weeks amid fresh escalation between the US and Iran after a peace deal fell through. The international benchmark averaged about $97 a barrel between April and June, against $78 in the first three months of the year and $67 a year earlier, after fighting between the US and Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel through which about a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes.

BP also cut its net debt to $22.25bn from $25.3bn three months earlier, and its shares rose 0.8 per cent on Tuesday morning, taking their gain for the year past 27 per cent.

Earlier, Norway’s state oil company, Equinor, also almost doubled its quarterly profits, allowing it to offer more cash to shareholders while cutting back on renewables.

The five majors, BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies, together made about $46bn between April and June, according to analysis by the campaign group Global Witness. Exxon reported $14.5bn for the quarter, Chevron $12bn and Shell $9.84bn, its second-highest result on record.

Donald Trump, who has spent his second term pressing for lower petrol prices, turned on the industry on Monday.

"They're making too much money based on a shortage," the US president told reporters at the White House, naming Exxon and Chevron. "I don't like it."

Patrick Galey, who leads fossil fuel work at Global Witness, said the criticism showed how far the numbers had run.

"You know Big Oil is taking us for a ride when one of their biggest allies, Donald Trump, is telling them to rein their profiteering in," he said, arguing that oil companies should be taxed more heavily to pay for flood and fire defences and for solar power.

BP's chief executive, Meg O'Neill, who took over in April, rejected the charge of profiteering when asked about Mr Trump's remarks.

"I understand the pressure that the ordinary household feels when they pull into the service station to fill up and see the prices,” she told CNBC.

“The reality is we produce a global commodity and the prices for the product we sell hangs off that global commodity price," she said, adding that the company was focused on keeping its oil fields and refineries running reliably and had adjusted its refineries to produce more of the fuels in shortest supply, such as jet fuel and diesel.