The comments below were supplied by a contributor to our Shell Blog who posts under the name of “Jo Blow”. The contributors name and email address have been supplied. When comments are of this quality, we will publish them as articles.
By Jo Blow
I am happy to see the activity and posts that continue to populate this site, some I agree with fully, some I see as having merit although the message is mired in a barrage of pointless bashing of all staff folks.
First I would like to comment on Paddy’s most recent posting, very insightful, and well written, I agree with you on many of your points, however I do not believe Shell will divest its entire downstream refining business. I do believe the portfolio will look very different in the near future. I believe you will see a large push within Shell/Motiva to focus on its larger most complex facilities, these facilities are best positioned on the surface to weather the times ahead in the oil industry. I say on the surface because any business arm that resides in the middle or the end of any supply chain oriented business must be cost competitive. Lets face it folks, in downstream we still are subject to market price for our feedstock, this in itself tells us that in order to be competitive we have to work our magic at competitive cost to be able to then sell our finished products (again at a market price) for a profit. So even a large complex facility will have no position in the portfolio if it can not accomplish this. I think this next point is the one most missed among many in the downstream businesses. As a large integrated oil company, exploration and production of crude is the future that drives the desire to have a downstream business. Pay attention to the word “Desire”, having a downstream business is not a necessity, upstream can simply market its feedstock on the open market and still fare well. read more
Like this:
Like Loading...
This website and sisters
royaldutchshellplc.com,
shellnazihistory.com,
royaldutchshell.website,
johndonovan.website, and
shellnews.net,
are owned by
John Donovan. There is also a
Wikipedia segment.