by Angela Macdonald-Smith: Nov 29, 2017
Royal Dutch Shell has sewn doubt in the market about an early 2018 start-up of the oil major’s innovative Prelude floating LNG project off the coast of north-west Australia, with chief executive Ben van Beurden signalling that the project will only start contributing noticeably to cash flow in 2019.
While the ramp-up of the $US54 billion (71 billion) Gorgon LNG project in Western Australia was named by Mr van Beurden as among projects named to help grow cash flows next year, Prelude was included in the later batch.
“Beyond 2018, in the 2019-2020 period I would expect another $US5 billion additional cash flow from operations,” Mr van Beurden told investors in a briefing in London late Tuesday Australian time.
“This would then include further start-ups in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and the ramp-up of Prelude and others.”
Shell still expects Prelude – the progress of which is being closely watched worldwide – to contribute to cash flows in 2018, a spokesman in Melbourne said. FULL ARTICLE
