News and information on Shell Plc
Written by Phil Allan – 04/05/2016 12:34 pm
Shell’s finance chief has refused to rule out further job losses in the North Sea as the oil giant announced its earnings had dropped by $4billion dollars in the first quarter of 2016.
Chief financial officer Simon Henry said the voluntary redundancy packaged announced recently announced as a result of Shell’s acquisition of BG Group, may not be the last to affect the North Sea as the company continues to look at cut costs from its global operation.
Steven Mufson March 11, 2016
Maybe not bone dry. In a recent interview, Odum wouldn’t say. But in the oil business glossary, a dry hole is one that can’t pay off commercially, and Shell’s hole definitely qualified. The parent company, Royal Dutch Shell, abruptly dropped any further drilling — a setback for the industry, though a relief for environmentalists.
For years, they had fought a vigorous, litigious and politically intense battle over the Chukchi. Meanwhile Shell, lured by potentially rich rewards, had overcome a couple of embarrassing rig mishaps at sea and patiently navigated the courts and the Obama administration’s permitting process. Now, geology had rendered its verdict.
Royal Dutch Shell’s (RDSa.L) costly flameout in Alaska last year was “a huge disappointment,” but did not push top North American executive Marvin Odum to exit the company, he said.
Odum made the comments hours after the company announced he would leave next month after 34 years.
“This should not be interpreted as, ‘Alaska didn’t work, so Marvin’s leaving,” Odum, 57, said in an interview.
Instead, he said he decided it was time to move on after heading Shell Oil Co, the Anglo-Dutch company’s U.S arm, since 2008. He later became head of exploration and production operations in the Americas as well.
The departing chief of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s U.S. division, who presided over its failed quest to find crude in Arctic waters off Alaska, said the effort was still a point of pride because it demonstrated the company’s technical expertise.
Marvin Odum, 57, is leaving the company in a reorganization announced Wednesday. He has been with the company for 34 years and held the post atop its U.S. division, Shell Oil Co., since oil prices were at record highs.
The Arctic was “a big bet,” Odum said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. head Marvin Odum will step down after the company abandoned a troubled drilling project offshore Alaska, and the global oil company said on Wednesday it will split up its U.S. shale and Canadian oil sands unit.
Stung by a 70 percent slide in crude prices since mid-2014, Shell this month reported its lowest annual income in more than a decade and pledged further cost saving measures.
The Anglo-Dutch company said on Wednesday its shale resources unit would become part of the global upstream business led by Andy Brown, and its Athabasca Oil Sands Project and Scotford Upgrader in Canada would be folded into the global downstream unit, headed by John Abbott.
…the company’s profits plummeted 70% from last year to $1.77 billion…Summary
The oil major Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) is closing in on its biggest ever merger with the UK based oil and gas producer BG Group (OTCQX:BRGYY). On Wednesday, the Anglo-Dutch oil producer revealed that it has received a green signal from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board following an approval from the country’s anti-trust regulator received last month. The BG Group is one of the major players in Australia’s rising LNG sector where the company has invested more than $20 billion on developing the Queensland Curtis LNG plant.
NOVEMBER 18, 2015 10:20 AM
Extracts
Shell has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent per barrel from its oilsands business in the past five years, through many small efforts, including making more efficient use of its trucks.
Yet that hasn’t stopped Shell from being a target and paying a high price for the anti-oilsands campaign.
Last month it cancelled the 80,000-barrels-a-day Carmon Creek oilsands project in Peace River in mid-construction, taking a $2-billion impairment charge.
by Veselin Valchev: Tuesday, 17 Nov 2015, 11:18 GMTRoyal Dutch Shell Plc (LON:RDSA) announced yesterday that the boss of the firm’s Canada division, Lorraine Mitchelmore, is stepping down from the company at the end of 2015, following six years at the helm.
The move comes less than a month after the Anglo-Dutch oil major abandoned its 80,000 barrel per day Carmon Creek thermal oil sands project in Alberta, amid a reshuffle of the firm’s portfolio.
A spokesman for Shell Canada said Mitchelmore’s departure had nothing to do with the decision to shelve Carmon Creek.
Written by Keith Kohl: Posted November 12, 2015 at 6:51PM
After backing out of an Arctic drilling program, Shell is taking yet another hit by leaving the Canadian oil-sands in Alberta.
To put it simply: the losses were too great.
There was no way Shell would have been able to stay competitive, so it decided to opt out, taking a $2 billion hit in the process.
As you know, the slump in crude oil prices since the summer of 2014 has caused energy companies to re-think upcoming projects.
Shell’s absence leaves at least 18 future projects on hold.
CALGARY, ALBERTA | BY MIKE DE SOUZA: Commodities | Thu Nov 5, 2015 9:01pm GMT
Royal Dutch Shell’s launch on Friday of Canada’s first oil sands project to capture and bury carbon emissions – assisted by generous public subsidies – will likely be the last to get such funding, the Alberta government said this week.
The left-leaning New Democratic government of the energy-rich Western Canadian province, home to the country’s controversial oil sands, said it no longer plans to fund future efforts using the technology.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (LON:RDSA) announced today that it has completed the sale of two assets from its downstream portfolio as part of its strategy to divest lower-margin businesses, as profits wane amid the depressed oil price.
The Hague-based oil major has completed the sale of its Butagaz liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business in France to DCC Energy for €464 million (£332 million).
The sale follows a binding offer received by Shell in May, in addition to consultation with staff and regulatory approval, the company noted.
There is blood in the water at Royal Dutch Shell. The wound will take some time to heal. The U.K. oil and gas company Thursday posted a huge third-quarter loss, dragged down by impairments of $8.2 billion in its upstream business. Just less than half the charges owed to Shell reducing its view of longer-term oil and gas prices by an unspecified amount. The remainder was write-offs resulting from its decision to cease drilling in the Arctic and call a halt to a Canadian oil sands project.
Perhaps worth noting is that investment decisions on the scale of the recent Shell write-offs would have required approval by the entire EC in the Hague long before BvB was around. Few of the EC members who made those decisions are still present.
It seems strange that so many of the huge projects which have been abandoned are in North America, and serious questions need to be asked about why approval was given by the EC for these huge projects. Only one member of the EC is directly involved in North American activities, Marvin Odum.
By STANLEY REED: OCT. 29, 2015LONDON — Lower petroleum prices took a big toll on Royal Dutch Shell in the third quarter.
The company reported a loss of $7.4 billion, compared with a profit of $4.5 billion in the quarter a year earlier. Adjusted for inventory changes and one-time items — a more closely watched measurement — earnings fell 70 percent to $1.8 billion.
The company took about $7.9 billion in write-offs for its recently halted exploration venture off Alaska, a canceled heavy-oil project in Canada and other operations.
CALGARY, ALBERTA: Tue Oct 27, 2015
Royal Dutch Shell Plc will not continue construction of its 80,000 barrel per day Carmon Creek thermal oil sands project in northern Alberta because of the lack of infrastructure to move Canadian crude to market, the company said on Tuesday.
Shell said the decision to halt the project was also the result of “current uncertainties” and chief executive Ben van Beurden said the company was having to manage costs in today’s low oil price environment.
HOUSTON – Royal Dutch Shell says it will stop building a large Canadian oil sands project after low crude prices pushed it out of the company’s shortlist of profitable projects.
It’s the second large project Shell has canceled since August, when it ditched a $7 billion effort to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. Shell said Tuesday its Carmon Creek project in Alberta, which was expected to pump 80,000 barrels of crude a day, was sanctioned in late 2013 when oil prices were still hovering around $100 a barrel.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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