Royal Dutch Shell Reports 57 Percent Drop in Net Income
LONDON — Jan 29, 2015, 3:42 AM ET: By DANICA KIRKA Associated PressRoyal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil company by market value, said Thursday that fourth quarter net income fell 57 percent to $773 million and that it would cap spending this year in response to falling oil prices.
Shell is one first big producers to report earnings since the recent plunge in oil prices, so the results are likely to set the tone for its peers. The price of Brent crude dropped about 50 percent last year.
Fourth quarter earnings on current cost of supplies basis, which excludes the impact of changes in the oil price on inventory, rose 93 percent to $4.2 billion. For the year, such earnings rose 14 percent to $19 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said Shell’s efforts to balance growth and returns had positioned the company well to handle the decline in prices. While lower oil prices and last year’s divestments are likely to reduce this year’s cash flow, the company must be careful not to “over-react.”
“We plan to cap our organic 2015 spending at 2014 levels, retain flexibility for both opportunistic, incremental plays and to further reduce spending should market conditions warrant that step,” he said in a statement.
Plan to allow Shell oil drilling fleet in Seattle draws ire
BY PHUONG LE ASSOCIATED PRESS: 01/28/2015 9:43 PM: SEATTLE
A plan to allow Royal Dutch Shell PLC to use Seattle’s waterfront as a homeport for its Arctic drilling fleet is drawing opposition from environmental groups that say it’s not consistent with the region’s environmental goals.
Several state and national groups, and local city leaders on Wednesday urged the Port of Seattle to halt lease negotiations that would allow Shell to use 50 acres of port property across from downtown Seattle.
Shell could house about two dozen vessels, including exploration drill rigs, ice breakers, tugs and barges at the site in the winter when they’re not exploring for oil off Alaska’s coast.
Port commissioners this month approved moving forward with a short-term lease with Foss Maritime, whose clients include Shell. The port is renovating the terminal to handle bigger ships and was looking for interim uses that could bring revenue.
Port officials and Foss say the projects also would create good-paying jobs, as well as local and state tax dollars.
But environmentalists say there was little environmental review or time for public input, and they reject the idea of Seattle being tied to Arctic offshore oil exploration.
“We want the port to reconsider and follow the law. If they don’t, we’ll have to seriously consider going to court,” said Patti Goldman, Northwest managing attorney for Earthjustice.
She and others said in a letter to port commissioners that Shell’s Arctic drilling fleet has “an abysmal track record when it comes to water pollution and compliance with environmental laws”.
In 2012, Shell’s drill vessel Kulluk ran aground after it had broken free from its tow in bad weather near Kodiak, Alaska. And last month, a drilling company hired by Shell to operate a drill ship in 2012 agreed to pay $12.2 million after pleading guilty to committing environmental and maritime crimes while transiting to and from Arctic waters.
Curtis Smith, a Shell spokesman in Alaska, said in an email Wednesday that the company doesn’t comment on potential or pending commercial arrangements. Its focus remains on a potential future drilling program in the Chukchi Sea, he said.
“For that to materialize, we need to see progress on a number of fronts, including the necessary permits and complete confidence that we can execute a program safely and responsibly,” he wrote.
In a statement, the Port of Seattle said it would review the groups’ concerns.
“This opportunity has the potential to create hundreds of family-wage jobs and generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the region,” the port said Wednesday.
The lease between Foss Maritime and the port has not been signed, and it’s unclear yet when it would start, said Peter McGraw, a port spokesman.
“We’re in negotiations with the port to lease part of Terminal 5 for a project that would bring hundreds of good maritime jobs to the waterfront,” Paul Queary, a spokesman for Foss Maritime, said Wednesday.
He declined to comment on the specifics of the lease or the company’s commercial agreements. He noted that many people attended the port hearing earlier in the month and testified.
Mike O’Brien, a Seattle city councilman who urged port commissioners to reconsider, said the region and port can create sustainable jobs.
“But we have to start by rejecting this false premise that somehow the future of Seattle’s economy is going to be tied to drilling in the Arctic. That’s not the city that I’m part of.”
Shell to cut spending by $15 bln over next 3 years
Jan 29 (Reuters) – Oil major Royal Dutch Shellsaid on Thursday it would curtail spending by $15 billion over the next 3 years while keeping dividends stable in a bid to calm investors amid plunging oil prices.
Europe’s largest oil company by market value kept its fourth-quarter dividend stable versus the previous quarter at $0.47 per share and pledged to pay the same amount in the first quarter of 2015.
The company reported fourth-quarter 2014 earnings on a current cost of supplies basis at $4.2 billion, compared with $2.2 billion a year earlier, meeting expectations.
Oil prices have fallen by almost 60 percent since June because of weak global demand and a boom in U.S. shale production. OPEC in November decided not to cut output in a move the group of oil producing nations hopes will force higher cost producers to trim production.
Oil majors including Shell rivals BP and Total have said they do not intend to cut dividends even if oil prices stay low for longer.
Most oil majors have already announced cuts in capital expenditures of around 10-15 percent and sold assets worth dozens of billions of dollars.
But they have warned against cutting too much as it could derail long-term projects, destroy the value of companies and potentially even lead to an oil shortage in the future.
Shell said in October, when oil prices declined to $85 a barrel, that its organic capital spending in 2015 would likely remain unchanged from 2014 at $35 billion – one of the largest capital investment programmes in the industry.
On Thursday, Shell said it expected 2015 capex to drop but did not say by how much.
(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Ron Bousso; editing by Jason Neely)
Oil tumbles; U.S. crude prices near six-year low on record stockpiles
Goldman Sachs analysts said in a Tuesday note that they expected U.S. crude, also known as WTI, to remain near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year
REUTERS
By Barani Krishnan
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil slumped on Wednesday, with U.S. crude prices at near six-year lows, after the government reported record-high inventories in the United States that raised anxieties about the global oil glut that had pressured the market since last summer.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said domestic crude oil stocks rose by almost 9 million barrels last week to reach nearly 407 million, their highest since the government began keeping records in 1982.
A Reuters poll on Tuesday had forecast a build of just above 4 million barrels for the week to Jan. 23. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, had estimated a far bigger growth of nearly 13 million barrels.
Oil prices, lifted by a weaker dollar in the previous session, tumbled anew on the stockpile data.
U.S. crude’s front-month contract settled down $1.78, or almost 4 percent, at $44.45 a barrel. It sank to as low as $44.08 before the close, marking a bottom since April 2009. Open interest in the front-month remained near record highs for a fifth straight day, according to Reuters data.
Benchmark Brent crude closed down $1.13, or 2.3 percent, at $48.47, after a session low at $48.29.
The spread between the two crude oils was its largest in a month, with Brent fetching a premium of about $4 a barrel due to the weaker fundamentals in U.S. crude.
Traders expected oil prices to come under further pressure in coming days…
Goldman Sachs analysts said in a Tuesday note that they expected U.S. crude, also known as WTI, to remain near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year.
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