Companies like BP and Shell fetch top prices for assets many thought they’d struggle to discard
By Stanley Reed, Brian Swint and Edward Klump January 13, 2011
To pay tens of billions of dollars in costs from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and spill, BP (BP) has been forced to ditch oil fields and other energy properties across the globe. Far from the predicted firesale, BP’s housecleaning has been a huge success. It has brought in $22 billion so far, fetching double the values on BP’s books for some assets. Now other companies including Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) and ExxonMobil (XOM), which sold nine of its Gulf of Mexico fields for about $1 billion last year, are also making divestitures of their less-attractive assets.
Asset sales by the world’s oil majors exceeded $50 billion last year, the most in at least 12 years. It’s not over. Jerry Kepes, a partner at consultants PFC Energy, estimates the oil majors have $150 billion to $200 billion worth of properties on their books that they could sell without an appreciable negative impact on their current performance or long-term outlook. “They are not getting any value in the stock market for having these assets around,” he says.
The sales are being prompted by several factors, including an abundance of buyers, stable oil prices that make deals easier, and a continuing shortage of the skilled staff needed to develop and operate oil fields. The most important factor may be a kind of identity crisis the big companies are struggling through. The markets used to reward the majors with higher share prices than their smaller competitors. No longer. Investors today see these companies as unwieldy conglomerates with little potential for growth. “There has been deep skepticism that the supermajor model adds value,” says Theepan Jothilingam, an oil analyst at Morgan Stanley (MS) in London.
Over the last five years, stocks of the six largest Western oil companiesExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Total (TOT), Chevron (CVX), and ConocoPhillips (COP)have logged an average annual return of just 5 percent. That’s considerably less than the 8.3 percent returned by an index of smaller oil companies, including Anadarko Petroleum (APC) and Apache (APA), and downright puny compared with the rocket-propelled performance of some smaller exploration companies such as Africa specialist Tullow Oil, which averaged 38 percent. Crude oil itself was a better investment than the majors, returning 9 percent.
The energy giants are beginning to get the message. They’re putting low-growth or marginal businesses on the block to raise money to plow into exploration, liquefied natural gas, and deepwater drilling activities that bring higher risks along with the possibility of better returns. Shell has turned more aggressive under new Chief Executive Peter Voser. The company has already exceeded a target of $8 billion in divestments. Among the highlights: the sale of a 10 percent stake in Australia’s Woodside Petroleum for $3.35 billion and a sale of Texas gas fields to Occidental Petroleum (OXY) for $1.8 billion.
Shell needs capital for what may turn out to be as much as $50 billion in new Australian gas projects as well as a huge $19 billion plant in Qatar that converts natural gas to diesel and jet fuel. “The divestments are in areas where we either see limited growth potential or other people may be prepared to invest more,” says Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry.
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.
