Royal Dutch Shell may have seen its profits slammed thanks to low oil prices, but its CEO told CNBC on Tuesday that the company’s strategy isn’t reliant on a certain oil price outcome.
“We have to be competitive, rather, at every oil price level, and that means that we have to continue to work on reducing our breakeven price of the company, making sure that we have a competitive sense of projects with a low breakeven price per project so that every point in the price cycle we are competitive,” Ben van Beurden said in an interview with “Closing Bell.”
The oil giant recently delivered its worst annual profit in more than a decade as low crude prices continued to weigh on the industry.
On the earnings conference call last week, van Beurden said that while the earnings didn’t “look good” for investors, he was pleased with the company’s performance as it completed its merger with gas utility BG.
“2016 was the transition year, 2017 needs to be the delivery year,” he said on the call.
Van Beurden told CNBC on Tuesday the company is working to pay down its debt, which will not impact its dividend.
“We have been, for two consecutive quarters, generating a free cash flow that can not only pay the cash dividend but in the last quarter also started to make headway with our debt reduction. $4.5 billion — it’s a start, but it’s in the right direction,” he said.
He also wants the company to reclaim its status as industry leader.
“For two decades we have been struggling a little bit but we are getting back to that point and I want us to be, again, back in terms of total shareholder return to the No. 1 spot.”
— CNBC’s Silvia Amaro contributed to this report.
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.
