2 Major Oil Firms Post High Profits : Gulf crisis: Britain’s Automobile Assn. calls on one firm to explain a threefold increase.

British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell Group today announced dramatically higher third-quarter profits, after riding a sharp rise in crude oil prices prompted by the Persian Gulf crisis.

In a number of countries, the full extent of increased supply costs due to the oil price rise after the gulf crisis could not be passed through into product markets.

In the United States, the biggest gasoline market, Shell’s profit from retail sales was only $11.8 million, as President Bush asked gasoline companies to hold the line on price increases during the gulf crisis.

British Petroleum announced a third-quarter net profit of $1.5 billion, nearly a threefold increase from earnings in the same period last year. BP said the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait sent the average crude price to $26 a barrel in three months, $10 higher than last year’s quarter.

Since the Aug. 2 invasion, prices “have been extremely volatile because of the changing perceptions of the risk of war,” the company said.

Earlier in the day, the Anglo-Dutch company Shell reported that its net third-quarter profit rose 68% to $2.13 billion from $1.28 billion a year ago.

Shell also said earnings were helped by higher exploration and production profits, which were largely due to sharply increased crude oil prices.

The company said the crisis in the Middle East and the U.N. embargo on exports from Iraq and Kuwait led to initial losses of about 4 million barrels a day of crude oil and oil products from world markets.

“While the crude oil loss has been largely made up by increased production elsewhere, prices have reflected market fears that the crisis might escalate,” Shell said.

Reacting to the announcement by Shell, Britain’s Automobile Assn. called on the company to explain the enormous profits.

“This sort of announcement is likely to make motorists suspicious that they have been profiteering,” a spokesman for the motoring organization said.

Gas prices at the pump have moved higher in Britain since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. But in September, the Office of Fair Trading cleared the oil companies of making excessive profits from the gulf crisis.

The decision was criticized by the Labor Party, which claimed that the government had given the oil companies a free hand.