Oil drilling on US Arctic coast put on ice

Asked whether Thursday’s retreat means the project is finished, Van Beurden said that depends in part on how the ongoing lawsuit proceeds.

Environmental activists cried victory.

“Shell’s Arctic failure is being watched closely by other oil companies, who must now conclude that this region is too remote, too hostile and too iconic to be worth exploring,” Greenpeace International Arctic oil campaigner Charlie Kronick said in a reaction.

Jacqueline Savitz, the U.S. chief of the Oceana conservationist group, said Shell’s retreat shows that offshore drilling in the Arctic is “simply not a good bet from a business perspective.”

Shell’s troubles in Alaska are only the most visible in a series of setbacks for the company in the U.S., and Van Beurden hinted he won’t prioritize investments there in the future.

While oil prices remain high globally, “North America natural gas prices and associated crude markers remain low, and industry refining margins are under pressure” Van Beurden said.

Last month, Shell said it was scrapping a $20 billion dollar project to develop an onshore natural gas-to-diesel facility in Louisiana.

Van Beurden’s predecessor, Peter Voser, spent billions building up the company’s portfolio of U.S. shale properties to $26 billion, only to write $2 billion off their value last summer.

“Yes, we went into North America in a big way. You could argue that we went a little bit too far too soon. But we are where we are,” Van Beurden said.

He described the North American shale market as “a different game, a very efficient market, and the sort of pressures you have there are therefore fundamentally different from what you would have in places like Russia, Argentina.”

Still, Shell’s Arctic misadventures stand out.

After purchasing licenses for $2.1 billion in the Chukchi sea off Alaska’s coast in 2008, Shell began preliminary drilling in the summer of 2012.

But it was unable to get far after difficulties deploying an oil containment system it had on standby in the event of a spill. Then was forced to retreat because of approaching winter ice.

Then one of its rigs was damaged while being transported on Dec. 31, 2012, and no drilling took place in 2013.

CFO Simon Henry said Thursday Shell wrote around $1 billion off the value of its Alaskan business in 2013.

“The group’s exploration near the North Pole cost billions of dollars and generated reams of negative press – yet not a single drop of oil has been pumped” said Garry White, Chief Investment Correspondent at British brokerage Charles Stanley.

“Like the mining sector, capital discipline has been lacking at the major oil groups and there is pressure from shareholders to cut back investment to improve cash flows,” he said. “Shell appears to be listening.”

Van Beurden said Shell will cut spending by $9 billion this year and is targeting $15 billion in asset sales.

Investors generally cheered the company’s plans, and shares were up 2 percent at 26.27 euros in early Amsterdam trading.

Van Beurden’s strategy “is pretty much what we believe the market wanted to hear,” said Investec analyst Neill Morton in a note.

But Morton predicted further writedowns of Shell’s North American shale assets.

Shell’s reported fourth quarter net profit of $1.78 billion (130 billion euros), down 74 percent on the $6.73 billion reported a year earlier. The big fall was due to higher production costs, lower production, and worse refining margins. The swing was also exaggerated by one-off items during the two periods. Production was down 5 percent to 3.25 million barrels per day.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

SOURCE