BP (LSE:BP) shares have been steaming higher recently due to surging oil and gas prices. So much so, only five FTSE 100 stocks have done better over this period (Computacenter, Glencore, Ithaca Energy, Lion Finance, and Standard Chartered).

BP is up 49%. So had someone invested five grand one year ago they would now have just under £7,500. Dividends have also been gushing, adding another £300 or so to their return. Nice.

The question now is, are BP shares still worth considering?

What’s the yield?

One of the first things any interested investor will look at is the prospective dividend yield. Currently, City analysts expect BP to dish out 33.7 cents per share for 2026, then 35.1 cents in 2027. This translates into a forward dividend yield of 4.25%. 

For context, Shell offers a forward yield of 3.1%, while the FTSE 100 is also in that ballpark. So the near-term income prospects look pretty decent, especially with elevated oil prices.

Indeed, the current forecasts might prove conservative.

What happened in H1?

The oil giant’s results back in August looked strong. Underlying replacement cost profit (which removes volatile inventory swings and one-off charges) was $5.7bn for the second quarter and $8.9bn for the first year. That was up from $2.4bn and $3.7bn respectively for the same periods in 2025. The quarterly dividend increased 4% to 8.66 cents.

However, CEO Meg O’Neill admitted that certain areas that fell short of expectations. She said: “Operationally, our plants didn’t run as well as they did last quarter — upstream plant reliability was 92.4%, compared to 95.7%, and production was down and our refineries processed less crude“.

On a positive note, net debt dropped by 15% to $22.3bn. And this could fall further in future as BP has signalled its intention to sell assets. These include its retail business in Austria, UK North Sea assets, and US biogas business Archaea.

Is BP still worth a look?

The share price reached a symbolic level last week — its highest since the disastrous Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010.

To my knowledge, Deepwater remains the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. And this surely played a part in the company’s pivot to reach net zero by 2050 (since ditched, of course, to focus on traditional oil and gas).

I’ve been impressed with O’Neill’s frank assessment of BP’s past operational failings. Indeed, it reminded me of Tufan Erginbilgic’s ‘burning platform’ comments when he took the helm at Rolls-Royce.

In August, she wrote: “Our performance over the past few years has not met our own expectations, let alone those of our shareholders. We have not delivered consistently; we have written off too much value; and our costs and liabilities are not resilient enough in a low price environment…We need to take a clear look at ourselves.”

Speaking of a low-price environment, may we see one in the months ahead? It might not seem likely at the moment, with things escalating across the Middle East. But were the Iran situation to change, the price of oil and gas would likely fall sharply.

The BP share price would then follow suit, which makes the stock somewhat risky in my eyes. Therefore, I see safer income opportunities to consider elsewhere across the FTSE 100.

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Ben McPoland owns shares of Rolls-Royce.