Gary Bourgeault: October 7, 2016
Summary
- Debt load associated with BG Group acquisition still weighs heavily on Shell.
- With a larger percentage of its business gas, it continues to struggle to sustainably break the $3 barrier.
- EPS will probably drop by over 40 percent for the year.
- Nigerian asset sales and risks to other holdings in the nation remain a concern.
- Dividend could remain at current level if the price of oil and gas maintain a higher bottom.
Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) has been taking some good steps to prepare for what it believes will be a strong future for LNG demand, as it puts various pieces of its infrastructure in place around the world. It has the goal of continuing to focus primarily on gas as its major product, looking for a time when it sustainably rebounds in price.
The long term prospects for Shell look fairly solid, but it does face some significant headwinds in the short term, including the debt overhang coming from its acquisition of BG Group, downward pressure on earnings per share (NYSEARCA:EPS), prolonged period of lower natural gas prices, and the loss of revenue from asset sales in Nigeria, along with the risk in the country for other projects it still has there.