Output reached 4.01 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) during the three months to December 31, down from the 4.095 million boepd that BP achieved a year earlier, BP said in a trading update.

The fourth quarter figure was was ahead of the third quarter's 3.84 million boepd and was broadly in-line with analysts' consensus forecasts.

However, the numbers confirmed the group's previous statement that total output for the year would likely miss its guidance of 4.1-4.2 million boepd.

The company's share in Russian-British oil firm TNK-BP, meanwhile, contributed some 1.020 million boepd in the fourth quarter.

BP said that hurricanes Rita and Katrina reduced production by an estimated 160,000 barrels per day, compared with a loss of 135,000 bpd in the third quarter of its financial year.

Katrina, which devastated US Gulf Coast energy installations as it struck New Orleans on August 29, was the costliest US hurricane on record. It was followed by Rita in September.

"Approximately 130 million dollars (108 million euros) of costs are expected to be incurred in the quarter, the majority to repair hurricane damage and the remainder in ongoing work on the Thunder Horse facility," BP said.

That will be on top of the over 400-million-dollar hit in fourth-quarter profits arising from the closure of the Texas City refinery and other key US facilities because of the hurricanes, BP said.

The Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico suffered damage at the hands of Hurricane Dennis in July.

The Gulf Coast natural disasters had forced BP last year to revise downwards the group's estimate of average daily energy production for 2005.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.