By MIchael Harrison, Business Editor
Published: 04 May 2007
Royal Dutch Shell added to the woes of its arch-rival BP yesterday by shrugging off lower oil prices and a fall in production to deliver record profits of $6.9bn (£3.5bn) for the first quarter of the year.
The 14 per cent profit increase compares with a 17 per cent slump in BP earnings for the first three months and took the markets by surprise since most analysts had assumed that Shell would also report a decline. Stripping out one-off gains, profits increased to $6.56bn, some 16 per cent ahead of analysts’ forecasts.
The profit improvement was tempered by a warning from Shell that output for the year as a whole was likely to be towards the bottom end of the company’s target range of 3.3 million barrels to 3.5 million barrels a day because of production problems in Nigeria.
Shell has been forced to slash production in the Niger Delta because of the growing security threat to its workers – a danger that was further highlighted yesterday after reports that at least six foreign workers from the Italian oil company Eni had been taken hostage in Nigeria.
Shell said that Nigerian production was 78,000 barrels a day lower in the first three months than the same period last year. Some 188,000 barrels a day of production remained shut-in at the end of the quarter and Shell said it could give no firm date for a return to full production given the volatile security situation.
Upstream earnings fell 6 per cent to $3.5bn, due to lower oil prices and a fall in gas production blamed on the warm weather. However, Peter Vosser, Shell’s finance director, said that the group had managed to maintain upstream margins at $13 a barrel – the same level as in the first quarter of 2006 – and that the market should not become too fixated with quarterly variations in production.
Shell caused a fright at its full-year results announcement three years ago by slashing its production guidance by between 300,000 and 500,000 barrels a day from the previous figure of 3.8 million barrels.
But yesterday’s results show that the oil giant has still managed to increase earnings by concentrating on more profitable production and increased capital discipline.
The company was also helped by an increase in profits from refining and marketing from $1.33bn to $1.48bn. Meanwhile, earnings from Shell’s chemicals division tripled to $480m.
Mr Vosser declined to be drawn on the problems at BP, where Lord Browne was forced to resign earlier this week as chief executive following the revelation that he had lied to the High Court about an affair with a gay lover.
Commenting on Shell’s own travails three years ago, when a reserves reporting scandal cost its top three executives their jobs and shareholders billions of pounds, Mr Vosser said: “We brought in new management and a new board, simplified the structure and put in place a long-term strategy. At the end of the day, it is people who make the difference.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2510926.ece
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.
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.
