Earnings Top Forecasts at Shell and Total
The oil companies Royal Dutch Shell and Total said yesterday that their first-quarter profits rose, beating analysts' forecasts, as near-record oil prices compensated for declining production and higher taxes.
Net income at Shell increased 3 percent, to $6.89 billion, or $1.05 a share, from $6.68 billion, or 99 cents a share, in the period a year earlier.
Earnings at Total, excluding changes in the value of a stake in the drug maker Sanofi-Aventis, gained 16 percent, to 3.38 billion euros ($4.27 billion), from 2.92 billion euros.
Profits for oil companies have been helped by rising energy prices, which gained this year on concern that exports from Iran, the world's fourth-biggest producer, may be cut. Violence in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil supplier, which has shut about a fifth of the country's production, including some Shell-operated fields, also pushed prices higher.
Shell's profit excluding changes in inventory values rose 12 percent, to $6.09 billion. Analysts had forecast profit of $5.67 billion.
Shell's profit gain was a “positive surprise,” driven partly by higher-than-expected profits from the gas and power division, including record sales of liquefied natural gas, said Citigroup analysts, including Jonathan Wright, in a note to investors.
Shell's oil and gas production fell 3 percent from the earlier quarter, to 3.75 million barrels a day of oil equivalent. Excluding hurricane and pricing effects, output would have been up 1 percent on the year, Shell said.
Total's quarterly production dropped 5 percent, to 2.44 million barrels a day. Total, based in Paris, reaffirmed its goal to increase production by about 4 percent a year through 2010, Robert Castaigne, the chief financial officer, said in a conference call with reporters.
Shell made no change to its production estimates for this year. It expects to pump 3.8 million to 4 million barrels a day in 2009.
The company, which has headquarters in the Netherlands and in Britain, said it was less likely to reach a target of replacing 100 percent of the oil and gas it pumps from 2004 through 2008, because rising costs are delaying some projects.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
