Daily Telegraph: We’ll be running to stand still until 2009, says Shell
“…Mr Van der Veer was dismissive of suggestions it might merge with French giant Total. He said: “The fact that [that story] can get legs shows that our reputation is not where we want it to be.”: “Shell was embarrassed about selling a field in North India to oil minnow Cairn Energy for a few million dollars which later yielded hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, he said.”
By Christopher Hope, Business Correspondent (Filed: 23/09/2004)
Shell pledged yesterday to spend more cash on finding oil and gas over the next three years as the world’s third largest oil company admitted that its production was likely to be flat between now and 2009.
Shell also said it would sell off $10 billion to $12 billion of non-core assets as part of an “urgent need” to restore its position after “losing” 4.4 billion barrels of proven oil and gas earlier this year.