What's going on?

Oil giant BP reported on Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profit more than quadrupled versus last year, thanks to a continuing surge in the price of oil that�s leading to good times for some in the sector.

What does this mean?

BP�s profit totaled $2.1 billion last quarter, boosting total annual profit in 2017 to a tidy $6.2 billion. The company significantly increased its energy production last year, opening seven new oil and gas fields altogether. It plans to launch six more projects in 2018 � all with the aim of growing its piggybank of oil reserves and meeting higher demand for oil across the world.

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: While the jump in the oil price is an obvious boon, not all of Big Oil did as well last quarter.

While Shell reported similarly glowing earnings to BP just last week, Exxon Mobil and Chevron posted profit and oil production figures below industry analysts� expectations. At the same time, Exxon, Chevron and BP all reported unexpectedly weak cash flow (literally the amount of money a company takes in or gives out), signaling that recent cost-cutting measures in the industry have not had as much of an impact as hoped.

For markets: Stock prices of oil producers have performed worse than the oil price.

The stock prices of oil companies are usually closely related to the price of oil, for the simple reason that selling oil at a higher price generates more revenue for the companies. However, while the oil price rose significantly late last year and, until the last few days, in this year too, stock prices of oil companies didn�t do as well. They also performed worse than the oil price during the recent selloff. Despite expectations that this gap in performance will close, there�s no sign of that happening yet.