Oil giant BP has cheered one of the strongest years in the company’s recent history after a hike in the cost of crude helped annual profits more than double. The energy giant saw underlying replacement cost profit - BP’s preferred income measure - soar to 6.2 billion (£4.4 billion) for 2017, up from 2.6 billion (£1.9 billion) the year before.

On a fourth-quarter basis, BP chalked up another rise at 2.1 billion (£1.5 billion), climbing from 400 million (£286.2 million) over the same three-month period in 2016 BP is among a string of oil majors benefiting from climbing prices, having seen Brent crude hit 70 per barrel last month - its highest level in more than three years.

Group chief executive Bob Dudley said:

2017 was one of the strongest years in BP’s recent history.

We delivered operationally and financially, with very strong earnings in the downstream, upstream production up 12%, and our finances rebalanced.

We enter the second year of our five-year plan with real momentum, increasingly confident that we can continue to deliver growth across our business, improving cash flows and returns for shareholders out to 2021 and beyond.

Online grocer Ocado has slumped to a full-year loss and warned that earnings will be knocked by the cost of developing its new warehouses and IT systems.

The group reported a pre-tax loss of £500,000 on a 52-week comparable basis to December 3, down from profits of £12m a year earlier, despite seeing sales rise 12.4%.

It cautioned that underlying earnings in the 2018 financial year would “reflect” the costs of investing in its UK logistics hubs, which include a distribution centre in Andover, Hampshire, and its technology platform.

The group - which delivers food for supermarkets Waitrose and Morrisons as well as own-brand goods - is planning to fork out £210m over the year ahead, while it also announced that it was issuing an extra 5% of its share capital with investors to raise money for its technology business.

It said full-year sales are expected to rise by 10% to 15% over the 2018 financial year, which would mark a slowdown on growth in previous years.

But it expects earnings to “ improve significantly” for the 2019 financial year thanks to investment in the business.

Ocado chief executive Tim Steiner said: “Now is the time to take advantage of our growth opportunities.

“We will invest to ramp up our new solution in both Erith and Andover and to have the right resources in place to meet growing demand for the Ocado Solutions offer.”

Investment news will be music to Tharsus’ ears.

The Northumberland manufacturer has been working with the online grocery retailer for several years, making swarms of robots as part of Ocado’s warehouse automation project.

The FTSE 100 Index has crashed by more than 230 points to 7,104.94 as inflation fears rock global markets.

This marks its lowest level since late 2016, dropping as low as 7079.4 at one stage soon after opening.

The pound at 8am was $1.3961 compared to $1.4021 dollars at the previous close, while the euro at 8am was 0.8882p compared to 0.8859p at the previous close.

Award-winning app developer Gospelware has been forced to close, leading to 15 jobs being lost in Newcastle city centre.

The company found itself with cashflow problems after a major client failed to pay the company on time.

Gospelware was also due to start a number of contracts in January but its financial situation was made worse after the projects were delayed.

As a result of the closure, 15 staff have been made redundant, and the company is now in the process of informing customers about its situation.

Michael Dunn, who co-founded Gospelware with his business partner Ryan Davies, confirmed that the company had ceased trading but declined to comment on the company’s situation.

Gospelware had won a string of awards for its work over the last few years, including a global Webby Award for best user interface. The Webby Awards honour businesses, celebrities, and artists from across the internet and are highly prized by those in the industry.

The company had also won a prize at the Big Chip Awards, which celebrate tech firms around the North, for the same project with motorbike crash detection app Realrider, which alerts the emergency services in the event of an accident.

Realsafe Technologies, which owns the Realrider app, employs an in-house team to run the app and will not be affected by Gospelware’s closure.

Andrew Richardson, chief commercial officer at Realsafe technologies, said: “The closure of Gospelware doesn’t affect our business, as they haven’t been involved in our app for a while. They did the design element for us.

“I wish the guys well. They did a great job on the design work when we rebranded the app and I wish them success in the future.”