North Sea oil and gas minnow wins vote of confidence from Shell

By Mark Williamson  @MarkWHerald

Group Business Correspondent

NORTH Sea oil and gas minnow Deltic Energy has seen its shares rise around eight per cent after the company won a fresh vote of confidence from the mighty Royal Dutch Shell.

Shell has decided to go ahead with a plan to drill a well with Deltic, on a prospect that has generated lots of excitement.

The companies have confirmed to the North Sea regulator that they have made a firm commitment to drill a well on the Pensacola prospect, which is set for next year. read more

Shell says green power shift will lift need for Australia’s LNG

By Nick Toscano: March 26, 2021

The Australian boss of global energy giant Shell sees demand for liquefied natural gas exports continuing to grow until at least the late 2030s even as COVID-19 hastens the shift away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

Shell, which believes its oil output may have hit a peak in 2019 and is now likely to gradually decline, has revealed a brighter outlook for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) assets including those in Queensland and off Western Australia. read more

Shell sees 70%-complete Pennsylvania petchem project operational in 2022

Big Oil Clashes Over Fossil Fuel Future

By Charles Kennedy – Mar 02, 2021, 9:00 AM CST

Executives from major oil companies clashed over the prospects of oil and gas for the future at the first virtual edition of the CERAWeek conference in Houston.

While BP’s Bernard Looney and Shell’s Ben van Beurden boasted about their shift away from their core business and into renewable energy, Baker Hughes, Hess Corp., and Spain’s Repsol were among those believing that fossil fuels have yet to leave the scene for good, the Houston Chronicle’s Paul Takahashi reports. read more

Shell LNG Canada’s coronavirus restart plan approved

Fri, February 12, 2021, 1:40 PM·

Feb 12 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell’s LNG Canada export project in British Columbia has won approval from health officials for construction to ramp back up with improved coronavirus protection measures.

Work at the site was curtailed last month by an order from the Provincial Health Officer which applied to five major industrial projects in British Columbia, including LNG Canada.

“Our approved restart and measured workforce increase at the project site will continue over the coming months,” LNG Canada and JGC I Fluor, the engineering joint venture building the project, said in a statement on Thursday. read more

Hedge funds bet on oil’s ‘big comeback’ after pandemic hobbles producers

FILE PHOTO: A combination of file photos shows the logos of five of the largest publicly traded oil companies; BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total. REUTERS/File Photo

By Maiya Keidan, Rod Nickel: 5 MIN READ: FEBRUARY 7, 20212:20 PM

TORONTO (Reuters) – Hedge funds are turning bullish on oil once again, betting the pandemic and investors’ environmental focus has severely damaged companies’ ability to ramp up production. read more

Oil giant Shell follows rivals into huge loss

“2020 was an extraordinary year,” said Chief Executive Ben van Beurden. “We have taken tough but decisive actions,” he said, with Shell having already announced plans to axe up to 9,000 jobs, or more than 10 percent of its global workforce.

Published on: Friday, February 05, 2021: By AFP

LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday became the latest oil major to reveal huge annual losses as the coronavirus pandemic slashed energy demand and prices in 2020.

Shell dived into a net loss of $21.7 billion (18.1 billion euros) last year as factories shut and planes were grounded. read more

Shell makes record loss in 2020 after more write-offs

Published date: 04 February 2021

Shell posted a record loss in 2020 after it booked more hefty write-offs in the fourth quarter.

Excluding inventory effects, Shell made a loss of $4.48bn in the October-December period, compared with a profit of $871mn a year earlier. The quarterly loss was largely driven by pre-announced, non-cash post-tax impairment charges of $2.7bn and charges of $1.1bn mainly for “onerous contract provisions”. read more

Shell plans to complete construction at Pennsylvania petchem project by 2022: CEO

PETROCHEMICALS: 04 Feb 2021 | 21:06 UTC: New York

• AuthorJacquelyn Melinek 
• EditorDerek Sands 

New York — Shell Chemical announced that construction at its $6 billion petrochemical complex in Pennsylvania is expected to be completed in 2022, Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden said during an earnings call Feb. 4.

Shell previously expected the Pennsylvania project to start up in the first half of 2021 after suspending work in mid-March 2020 due to coronavirus pandemic concerns. read more

Oil major Shell reports sharp drop in full-year profit, raises dividend

• Shell reported adjusted earnings of $4.85 billion for the full-year 2020. That compared with a profit of $16.5 billion for the full-year 2019.
• The company said it would raise its first-quarter dividend to $0.1735 per share, reflecting an increase of 4% from the previous quarter.
• The results come as energy giants seek to reassure investors about their future profitability, following a dreadful year for the global oil and gas industry by virtually every measure.

LONDON — Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday reported a sharp drop in full-year profit as the coronavirus pandemic took a heavy toll on the global oil and gas industry.

Shell reported adjusted earnings of $4.85 billion for the full-year 2020. That compared with a profit of $16.5 billion for the full-year 2019, reflecting a drop of 71%. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected full-year 2020 net profit to come in $5.15 billion. read more

2020 Was One of the Worst-Ever Years for Oil Write-Downs

Royal Dutch Shell’s Prelude floating facility has struggled to deliver income. PHOTO: ROYAL DUTCH SHELL AUSTRALIA/REUTERS

By Collin Eaton and Sarah McFarlane: Dec. 27, 2020 9:00 am ET

The pandemic has triggered the largest revision to the value of the oil industry’s assets in at least a decade, as companies sour on costly projects amid the prospect of low prices for years.

Oil-and-gas companies in North America and Europe wrote down roughly $145 billion combined in the first three quarters of 2020, the most for that nine-month period since at least 2010, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That total significantly surpassed write-downs taken over the same periods in 2015 and 2016, during the last oil bust, and is equivalent to roughly 10% of the companies’ collective market value. read more

Shell to Provide Over One Million Pieces of PPE to U.S. Communities

NEWS PROVIDED BY Shell Oil Company Dec 22, 2020, 09:00 ET

HOUSTON, Dec. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — As the number of COVID-19 cases surges across the country, Shell Oil Company (Shell) has announced it will contribute more than one million pieces of PPE to communities and medical care facilities from coast to coast. Extra face shields, non-medical masks and nitrile gloves are now arriving in some of the hardest hit areas of the country. read more

Shell fourth quarter 2020 update note

The Hague, December 21, 2020 − This is an update to the fourth quarter 2020 outlook provided in the third quarter results announcement on October 29, 2020. The impacts presented here may vary from the actual results and are subject to finalisation of the fourth quarter 2020 results.

This update note is presented based on prevailing commodity prices and forward curves, further movements and volatility till the end of the year are likely to impact earnings and CFFO. read more

Layoffs at shuttered Shell Convent, Louisiana, refinery to begin in late Feb -sources

By Reuters Staff: DECEMBER 18, 2020

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Layoffs of hourly workers at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s shuttered Convent, Louisiana, refinery are scheduled to begin on the last day of February, said sources familiar with plant operations.

The next round of layoffs is scheduled for March 31, the sources said.

A Shell spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.

About 350 hourly workers will leave jobs they have performed for years at the 211,146 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery located 46 miles (74 km) west of New Orleans. read more

Shell to axe refining plants and focus on dividends and debt reduction

Philip Whiterow: 07:31 Thu 29 Oct 2020

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (LON:RDSB) has unveiled a huge restructuring of its refining and chemical operations as part of a strategic overhaul that places dividends at its centre.

The Anglo-Dutch giant said its fourteen refining sites will be reduced to six integrated chemical parks, with a switch in focus to performance chemicals and recycled feedstocks.

Shell’s marketing arm will also be strengthened with the development of the integrated power business and hydrogen and biofuels. read more

The Big Oil Side Hustle: Where ‘Renewable’ Money Is Really Going

By Alex Kimani – Oct 20, 2020, 6:00 PM CDT

In 2016, Shell set an ambitious goal to invest $4bn to $6bn in clean energy projects by 2020, though the Guardian recently reported that it was unlikely to meet that target. So, why is Big Oil still dragging its feet…

Every time an oil and gas major announces a major foray into renewable energy, the skeptics come out like clockwork and lambast the sector for merely trying to burnish its green credentials. read more

Oil Majors Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place

By Andreas De Vries – Oct 18, 2020, 6:00 PM CDT

Extracts

The past few years have been historic for as far as crude oil forecasts are concerned. Back in 2015 the view that crude oil demand could peak during the 2020s or 2030s was still met with disbelief (and some ridicule…). Economic growth had been pushing crude oil demand up ever year for decades already, so why would things become different, so the reasoning went. Today, however, essentially all major energy forecasters, including BP, Shell, Total, DNV-GL, the IEA and even OPEC, have come round and acknowledge Peak Oil Demand as a realistic possibility. read more

Workers removed from North Sea platform after colleague tests positive for Covid-19

by Hamish Penman:13/10/2020, 11:55 am

More than a dozen workers have been removed from a North Sea platform after a colleague tested positive for Covid-19.

Energy giant Shell confirmed that a crew member, who was demobilised from the Nelson platform on Friday, subsequently tested positive for the virus.

Contact tracing then found another 14 people had come into close contact with the individual, who were all removed from the installation on Sunday as a precaution. read more