In defence of Ben van Beurden
An article published today by The Wall Street Journal – “Shell, Bruised by Big Bets, Warns of Profit Miss” – makes the case from the standpoint of Ben van Beurden, why he should not be blamed for the profits warning announced yesterday by Royal Dutch Shell Plc that shocked the markets.
By John Donovan
Shell crushed by out of control elephants?
An article published today by The Wall Street Journal – Shell, Bruised by Big Bets, Warns of Profit Miss – makes the case from the standpoint of Ben van Beurden, why he should not be blamed for the profits warning announced yesterday by Royal Dutch Shell Plc that shocked the markets.
Apparently he warned that Shell should be cautious in relation to multibillion dollar elephant projects, which were pushed by Jeroen van der Veer, the first Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. BvB claims that he had no say over investments in EP projects and “questioned if it made sense for Shell to bet so heavily on ‘big-ticket’ projects”.
He is also said to be one of the senior executives who decided to abandon plans for a $20 billion gas-to-liquids plant in Louisiana.
On Friday, Shell gave variety of excuses, with no elephants in the room.
Extracts from Daily Mail article.
Shell blamed a string of factors including maintenance shutdowns in particularly high margin businesses such as liquid natural gas and a general decline in oil prices.”
It also pointed to an increase in the cost of oil exploration, difficult conditions for oil refining and the weak Australian dollar.
Other setbacks include continued losses in Shell’s North American production operations and the security situation in Nigeria, where pipelines have been shut due to vandalism and oil theft.
The Wall Street Journal article by Justin Scheck is well worth reading.
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Sell Shell And Oil Majors: Shell forecast disastrous earnings on January 17th. Forbes captured investor sentiment in the catchy title of an excellent article “What The Hell, Shell? Oil Giant Warns On Disasterous Quarter“.
A bad start for Shell CEO Ben van Beurden
Like Mr Voser BvB seemed eager to assume the top job and appeared to be decisive, which was encouraging. That was before he became an apparent victim of what is being described as Shell’s current “annus horribilis.” Seems to be an annual event.
By John Donovan
Not exactly an inspiring start by the new Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Ben van Beurden.
Three weeks into his tenure and already one of his executive director colleagues has suddenly left the company without any rational explanation. Now we have the profits warning that took the markets by surprise and a related admission by BvB that “our 2013 performance was not what I expected from Shell.”
I can only surmise that he has not been a regular visitor to this website, or he might have been rather better informed than apparently has been the case, if we are to believe his claim of ignorance, as if he was some mere bystander.
There have been countless news reports from around the world about the profits warning, but thus far none has highlighted the fact that BvB was an executive director of Royal Dutch Shell Plc during the period in question (from a year ago) and therefore has to accept a share of the blame for what has gone wrong.
There will be no dodging responsibility now that he has the top job.
Like Mr Voser BvB seemed eager to assume the top job and appeared to be decisive, which was encouraging. That was before he became an apparent victim of what is being described as Shell’s current “annus horribilis.” Seems to be an annual event.
RIGHT OF REPLY
Any comment BvB wishes to make will be published here on an unedited basis.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
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