by Bloomberg: Rakteem Katakey: Tuesday, October 06, 2015
(Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc is “pulling out all the stops to safeguard” its dividend in a world where oil prices remain “lower for longer,” Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said.
Europe’s biggest oil company is also protecting its plan to buy back shares, Van Beurden said in e-mailed comments before a speech at an industry conference in London on Tuesday. Shell is also keeping its “investment program steady for the future,” he said.
The halving of oil prices in the past year has forced Shell and its peers to cut costs, defer projects and hunker down for a prolonged period of low oil prices. Even with oil trading for about $50 a barrel, Shell’s Van Beurden and BP Plc boss Bob Dudley have made dividends their top priority. Shell has weathered market ups and downs for seven decades — including oil at less than $10 in the 1980s and 1990s — without cutting dividends.
The company is “geared to generate cash flow from operations and free cash flow in 2017 and beyond,” Van Beurden said. “So Shell is planning for a longer period of low prices.”
Shell’s debt-to-equity ratio gives it the flexibility to maintain dividend payouts even at lower oil prices, Van Beurden said. The Hague-based company expects to cut operating costs by about $4 billion, or 10 percent, this year and will reduce capital expenditure by 20 percent.
Oil’s collapse drove Shell’s annual dividend yield to 8.1 percent on Sept. 28, the highest in more than at least 20 years. The measure was at 7.2 percent on Monday compared with 4.1 percent for the benchmark FTSE 100 Index.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rakteem Katakey in London at [email protected]. To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at [email protected] Grant Smith
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.
