Shell raises dividend as retail boost drives confidence

Shell also plans to shed up to 9,000 jobs, or more than 10% of its workforce.

By Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla: 29 October 2020

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday raised its dividend after easily beating quarterly profit forecasts and outlined plans to shrink its oil and gas operations as it presses forward with a transition to low-carbon energy.

The Anglo-Dutch company hit record earnings from its vast retail division, despite the impact on demand of the COVID-19 pandemic, which it said continued to generate “significant uncertainty”. read more

FINANCIAL TIMES

Shell slims down to shape up for the energy transition

Anjli Raval, Senior Energy Correspondent

…the Anglo-Dutch group has been forced into previously unthinkable moves, change and scrutiny of its capital allocation plans mount, is scrambling to come up with an updated plan. In the meantime, it is cutting costs and streamlining.

On Wednesday it offered a glimpse into Project Reshape, its organisational restructuring in which up to 9,000 jobs will be cut from its 83,000-strong workforce to save $2.5bn a year. read more

Exclusive: Shell launches major cost-cutting drive to prepare for energy transition

By Ron Bousso: SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is looking to slash up to 40% off the cost of producing oil and gas in a major drive to save cash so it can overhaul its business and focus more on renewable energy and power markets, sources told Reuters.

Shell’s new cost-cutting review, known internally as Project Reshape and expected to be completed this year, will affect its three main divisions and any savings will come on top of a $4 billion target set in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. read more

‘Stranded Assets’ Risk Rising With Climate Action and $40 Oil

By Laura Hurst | Bloomberg:

September 18, 2020 at 7:55 a.m. GMT+1

What had seemed like an abstract debate about leaving oil, gas and coal in the ground to fight climate change has suddenly become real. Environmental activists have long fought for lower fossil-fuel production. Now, with the pandemic crippling economies and reducing energy use and prices, drillers and miners are coming to grips with projects that are no longer viable. Some companies are even abandoning investments, leaving deposits worth billions of dollars in the ground to languish as so-called “stranded assets.” While environmentalists applaud, fund managers, banks and regulators worry that project financing could sour and collateral become worthless. read more

A series of recent events highlight the challenge Shell has ahead of it with Prelude, and plans for sister vessels which are supposed to follow.

“Over the coming months we will go through a comprehensive review of the company. Where appropriate we will redesign our organization to adapt to a different future…”

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell will announce a major restructuring by the end of the year as the energy company prepares to accelerate its shift towards low-carbon, CEO Ben van Beurden told employees according to a company source.

In a video interview published on Shell’s internal website, van Beurden said that the restructuring would involve job cuts as part of broad cost reductions, although no figures have been decided yet, according to sources who saw the interview. read more

Shell airlifts workers after coronavirus outbreak on Gulf rig

Workers aboard a Shell Oil offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico have tested positive for the coronavirus and flown back to land for treatment, a KHOU report says.

by L M Sixel and Sergio Chapa, Houston Chronicle: 28/05/2020

Shell Oil, the U.S. subsidiary of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell, has evacuated nine workers from a company platform in the Gulf of Mexico for testing and treatment of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. read more

As oil prices collapse, Shell is postponing the final investment decisions (FIDs) for two planned projects, one in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and another in the UK North Sea, a source with the supermajor told Reuters on Wednesday.

Shell is now thinking of postponing the FID for the development of the Whale discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, Reuters’ source said. The initial FID timeframe was to make the decision later in 2020, but it is now postponed to 2021.

Shell announced the large deepwater discovery in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in January 2018, although it had made it six months earlier. Back then, the company said that the Whale discovery was “one of its largest U.S. Gulf of Mexico exploration finds in the past decade.” Shell is the operator of the planned project with a 60-percent interest, while U.S. supermajor Chevron holds the other 40 percent. 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

“Investors are gradually moving away from energy stocks. A look behind the dividend payments of the leading companies helps explain why. For the core business of these companies, there is more money going out than coming in.” 

By Jordan Blum: Thursday, January 16, 2020

The largest oil and gas companies for years have lived beyond their means and paid more money to investors than they can reasonably afford, according to a new report.

The study from the Cleveland-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that the five largest Big Oil majors — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total — spent $536 billion on shareholder dividends and stock buybacks since 2010 while bringing in just $329 billion in free cash flow. read more

By Reuters• last updated: 01/07/2019 – 16:04

(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> confirmed two fatalities as a result of an incident at its Auger Tension Leg Platform in the deep-water U.S. Gulf of Mexico on Sunday morning.

“One other non-life-threatening injury was sustained, and that individual is being treated at a nearby hospital,” Shell said in an emailed response on Monday.

The accident occurred around 9:00 a.m. CST during a routine and mandatory test of a lifeboat launch and retrieval capabilities at the platform, located 214 miles south of New Orleans. read more

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In brief

*The number of accidents per man-hour worked has risen again for the first time in a long time last year.

*A series of incidents, criminal investigations and warnings from regulators are damaging Shell’s safety image.

*Shell CEO Van Beurden himself is also not satisfied and wants to do more to guarantee safety.

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad.

Beeld: Getty Images/ bewerking: FD Studio

Shells gas leaks, fires and accidents

Bert van Dijk: 13 March 2019

Last year the number of accidents per hour worked increased at the oil company. Supervisors warn that Shell needs to do more about safety.

In December 2017, during regular maintenance work, a lifeboat suddenly came loose on the Shell platform Brent Alpha in the North Sea. The lifeboat fell into the sea and was recovered a day later. Although no one is injured, it was not the first time. In 2008, it was discovered that two lifeboats on another nearby Shell platform, Brent Bravo, were technically in such poor condition that they had to be replaced. And in 2007 a rescue boat on another Shell platform broke loose and collapsed into the sea. read more

Ben van Beurden Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

The boss of oil giant Shell has admitted he is “still unhappy” with the firm’s safety performance, despite pledging a redoubling of efforts in 2018.

Written by David McPhee – 07/01/2019 1:03 pm

Chief executive, Ben van Beurden, raised a call to redouble the firm’s focus on safety last year after a number of serious incidents in 2017.

An overturned tanker spill and explosion in Pakistan caused the tragic death of 200 people, while there were also fatalities in Canada and Nigeria.

Mr van Beurden added he is also focusing on restoring trust in the oil firm.

He said: “I’m still unhappy with our safety performance.

“In 2018, sadly two people died on our watch – one at a refinery in Germany and another at an onshore well in the USA.

“More broadly, the safety performance at our facilities has improved, but our performance on personal safety is worse than the previous year.

“We have to step up our efforts to keep people safe.”

Mr van Beurden also said that he can see that trust has noticed an “eroding” or trust in the UK, the Netherlands and the USA.

Shell came under heavy criticism from climate groups in 2018, with high profile opposition coming from investor group Follow This.

The firm also faced widespread shareholder opposition over chief executive pay last year.

Mr van Beurden said: “I feel an attack on Shell as an attack on my personal integrity. It’s something I feel deeply, probably at least once a day. If I can reduce that to once every other day, I’ll know that we are making progress.

“Of our three strategic ambitions – to become a world-class investment case, to thrive through the transition to lower-carbon energy and to have a strong societal licence to operate – I’m confident that we can achieve the first two.

“But I can’t see a sure path towards strengthening our societal licence to operate just yet.

“We need to change people’s perceptions through better performance and behaviours. And we need to have a better dialogue with civil society in some parts of the world.”

SOURCE

Marissa Luck, Houston Chronicle: Monday, Jan 7, 2019

The Gulf Coast has become home of one the largest producers of a common plastic: Shell fired up its fourth alpha olefins unit at its chemical plant in Geismar, Louisiana, the company said Monday.

The multi-billion dollar expansion adds 425,000 metric tons per a year in capacity to the chemical manufacturing site, bringing its total alpha olefin production up at Geismar to more than 1.3 million metric tons per a year. That makes it the largest alpha olefins producing site in the world, the company said. read more

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Shell celebrates 40 years of deep-water innovation: CISION: 15 Oct 2018

Gazprom and Shell discuss next steps in Baltic LNG project: LNG INDUSTRY: 15 Oct 2018

Shell reaches milestone on plastics plant in Northeast, potentially a Gulf competitor: Houston Chronicle: 14 Oct 2018