PERTH | BY SONALI PAUL: Tue Apr 12, 2016
Royal Dutch Shell could sell some of its older, lower grade North Sea assets to improve the quality of its portfolio, CEO Ben van Beurden said on Tuesday, part of a two-year program to help finance its purchase of gas major BG Group.
After completing the $52 billion acquisition of BG in February, Shell said it would sell $30 billion in assets between 2016 and 2018 to help finance the deal and to maintain its dividend following a sharp drop in oil prices since mid-2014.
“The North Sea for us will be an area where we will have to take a look, as we have to do with our entire conventional upstream, now that we have a much enlarged portfolio,” van Beurden told reporters at a conference.
BG assets Shell acquired in the North Sea are newer, have more running room and are of higher quality, so the company would look to sell some of its other properties there, he said.
Van Beurden also said Shell still sees the Brazil deepwater assets it acquired with BG as highly attractive. Any potential delays in developing those assets due to political and economic problems in the country had been factored into Shell’s valuation of BG, he said.
“These are still fundamentally the best deepwater resources that are available on the planet. And that will not change.”
While Shell has been selling some refining and gasoline retail businesses around the world, van Beurden played down the chances it would sell its huge refinery in Singapore, saying it was core to Shell’s fuel trading and integrated petrochemicals business, despite its profit margins being “not that exciting”.
“We consider Singapore part of the backbone of our oil products business,” he said.
On new opportunities, Shell would look at Iran, alongside other potential developments, he said, although adding that it was important to remain cautious on dealings with Tehran as it has just emerged from sanctions.
“I look at it with optimism or positive intent. But we also have to be cautious we don’t get too carried away too early,” van Beurden said, when asked about the opportunities in Iran.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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.
