Energy companies slash another $19 billion as oil price remain near 20-year lows

Eleven energy companies over the past several days said they would cut a combined $18.6 billion dollars from their budgets as oil prices remain near 20-year lows, setting the stage for tens of thousands additional layoffs.

West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $23.36 per barrel Monday, a price not seen since March 2002 as Russia and Saudi Arabia flood global markets and the coronavirus pandemic crushes demand.

Energy companies big and small — including Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil, Hess and Halliburton — have responded by slashing spending for new projects and operations, halting stock buy back programs, putting deals on hold and selling assets. read more

PUBLISHED WED, MAR 25 20205:14 AM EDT

• The world’s biggest oil and gas firms should break an industry taboo and consider cutting dividends as they weather the fallout from the pandemic, investors say.
• Investors prefer the dividend cut to companies taking on any more debt to maintain payouts.
• The top five so-called oil majors have avoided reducing dividends for years to keep investors sweet and added a combined $25 billion to debt levels in 2019 to maintain capital spending, while giving back billions to shareholders.

The world’s biggest oil and gas firms should break an industry taboo and consider cutting dividends, rather than taking on any more debt to maintain payouts as they weather the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, investors say.

The top five so-called oil majors have avoided reducing dividends for years to keep investors sweet and added a combined $25 billion to debt levels in 2019 to maintain capital spending, while giving back billions to shareholders. read more

By DAILY MAIL CITY & FINANCE REPORTER: PUBLISHED: 23:30, 12 March 2020 | UPDATED: 00:33, 13 March 2020

Shell’s boss’s pay was cut in half in 2019.

The FTSE 100 energy business said Ben van Beurden was paid £8.7million last year – a 51 per cent drop on 2018. 

It came after a year when seven people died while working for the company and its turnover dropped.

Van Beurden has been chief executive since 2014. 

His base salary was around £1.4million and he received more than £6million from a long-term performance share plan.  read more

12-Mar-2020

Royal Dutch Shell plc published its Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended December 31, 2019.

The 2019 Annual Report and Accounts can be downloaded from www.shell.com/annualreport.

In compliance with 9.6.1 of the Listing Rules, on March 12, 2020, a copy of the 2019 Annual Report and Accounts was submitted to the National Storage Mechanism. This document will shortly be available for inspection at http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/NSM.

Printed copies of the 2019 Annual Report and Accounts will be available from April 16, 2020, and can be requested, free of charge, at www.shell.com/annualreport. read more

by Mark Lammey: 12/03/2020, 8:28 am

The energy giant’s annual report showed its boss was paid 87 times more than the average Shell employee in the UK in 2019.

Mr van Beurden took home a base salary of £1.37m, an annual bonus of £705,000, and £6.3m from his long-term incentive plan (LTIP).

His total remuneration, including pension and tax equalisation, came to £8.7m, the Anglo-Dutch firm said.

That total is about £9m lower than in 2018, when he was paid 143 times more than the average UK employee. read more

The collapse in crude prices has brought into relief the correlation between oil majors’ financial leverage and the valuation of their shares. It’s a relationship that looks like particularly bad news for the bigger European firms.

Investors’ knee-jerk reaction to the downward lurch in the oil price was, naturally, more severe toward the companies that were more indebted. So shares in BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Equinor ASA and Eni SpA suffered more than Total SA and the two big U.S. majors, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., when European markets closed on Monday. read more

By Nick Cunningham – Mar 01, 2020, 4:00 PM CST

ExxonMobil saw its share price nosedive by roughly 15 percent in the past week, one in a series of oil companies that finds itself in a freefall.

Four other oil majors – Chevron, BP, Shell and Total – also declined sharply, dragged down by the worst weekly loss for oil prices in more than four years.

But the problems for the oil majors run much deeper than the coronavirus, and their share price declines have been underway for quite some time. read more

Radio 1 DJ Greg James was paid £100,000 by oil giant Shell to front an online campaign which plugged the company’s ‘green’ credentials.

The Breakfast Show presenter, who is paid £229,999 a year by the BBC, is the latest star to be accused of cashing in on their public profiles by moonlighting for corporate firms.

The 34-year-old, who broadcasts to around 5.6 million listeners each Monday to Thursday, fronted a five-part series for Shell called The Great Travel Hack.

The Top Gear-style programme followed two teams of competitors racing from London to Istanbul while using environmentally friendly vehicles. read more

BP’s pledge to zero out all its carbon emissions by 2050 deepens the divide between major European and American oil producers on climate change, increasing the pressure for Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. to do more.

The U.S. giants have committed only to reducing greenhouse gases from their own operations. On Wednesday, BP followed Royal Dutch Shell and Equinor in pledging to offset the carbon emissions from the fuels they sell. Known as Scope 3, the emissions from cars, homes and factories are responsible for 90% of fossil fuel pollution. read more

As BP Plc’s new chief delivers his vision to transform the company on Wednesday, investors and activists want to know just how much appetite he has to take on the existential crisis facing the oil industry.

12 February 2020

Bernard Looney’s big challenge will be to navigate BP through an energy transition with the world falling out of love with oil, and louder demands from investors to pivot toward clean energy. When climate protesters forced the company to shut its London headquarters last week, the 49-year-old Irishman promised them he would address their concerns.

BP is already taking some modest steps to address climate change, including investment in renewables and selling some of its most carbon-intensive assets. But it remains an oil major through and through, still very much the company that tapped the first fields in Iran early in the last century and drilled wildcat wells on the Alaskan frontier more than 60 years ago. read more

The $1.3trn cost of leaving energy underground

Unless a solution is found for climate change in the coming decade, there is a risk of a sharp collapse in asset prices of oil companies. 

Alan Livsey: Feb 5, 2020

Donald Trump was thinking about the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg when he took aim at what he called the “prophets of doom” at Davos in January. But just as easily he could have been targeting global investors whose trenchant criticism of hydrocarbons has led to a shift in investment away from the traditional energy sector and into renewables.

This move represents a big problem for energy groups such as Exxon, BP and Saudi Aramco. Vast swaths of their oil, gas and coal reserves may never be extracted and burnt because doing so would intensify global warming, worsening weather events and threatening the loss of farmland and huge population displacement. read more

Agencies: Wed 5 Feb 2020 12.19 GMTLast modified on Wed 5 Feb 2020 13.16 GMT; THE GUARDIAN

Greenpeace members have blocked BP’s headquarters with solar panels and oil barrels to mark Bernard Looney’s first day as chief executive.

About 100 environmental activists took 500 solar panels to the central London building at 3am on Wednesday as Looney prepared to take up his new role. Some protesters sat underneath the solar panels after they were prevented from installing them on the pavements and roads near the office. read more

Reuters: Feb. 1, 2020, 8:52 a.m. ET

THE HAGUE — Environmental activists chanting “keep it in the ground” blocked the entrance to Shell’s headquarters in The Hague on Friday, protesting at the energy company’s role in climate change, until police dragged them away, detaining 30.

Some of the environmentalists from the Extinction Rebellion and Shell Must Fall! lobby groups wedged themselves between the glass front doors of the building. Others held banners and splashed a black liquid on its front steps, chanting slogans including “ExxonMobil, BP, Shell: take your oil and go to hell!” read more

* Shell, Repsol included due to their climate goals

* FACTBOX on Big Oil’s climate targets:

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The Church of England’s 2.8 billion pound pension fund has put 600 million pounds ($789 million) into a climate index which includes Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol, but shuns BP, Exxon and Chevron.

The Church, which has pressured oil producers to improve their climate targets, based its index on the London School of Economics’ Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) on companies’ alignment with the goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. read more

Stuart Elliott: 30 JAN 2020

London — Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said Thursday the company was “not spending enough” on its new energies business, particularly in electricity.

Speaking to journalists following the release of Q4 earnings, van Beurden said he “desperately” wanted to grow the business more quickly, but it would remain disciplined in its spending.

Shell created its new energies division — which brings together assets in electricity supply and generation, electric vehicle charging, and other new fuels such as hydrogen and biofuels — in 2016. read more