Shell to explore sale of two U.S. refineries

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) says it will seek to sell two U.S. refineries, in Alabama and Washington state, the latest step in the drive by European oil majors to reduce their refining footprints.

The Mobile, Ala., facility has a crude capacity of 79K bbl/day and is oriented toward chemicals.

A sale of the Puget Sound refinery in Anacortes, Wash., with a 145K bbl/day processing capacity, would limit Shell’s U.S. refining presence to the Gulf Coast, where its two main facilities are the Convent and Norco refineries in Louisiana. read more

Feb. 6, 2020 7:25 PM ET|About: Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)| By Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Liquefied natural gas is selling at the lowest price on record in Asia, a troubling sign for U.S. energy producers who have relied on overseas shipments of shale gas amid a weak domestic market.

Asian LNG prices fell to $3/MMBtu today, plunging from above $5/MMBtu as recently as Jan. 15, as a glut in the commodity spreads from the U.S. all over the globe.

“The fundamentals were already really weak” even before the coronavirus outbreak stalled economic activity in China, says Ira Joseph, head of gas and power analytics at S&P Global Platts. “The whole market is really oversupplied.” read more

Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) and partner Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) say they have paid a combined $355M to jointly acquire Schlumberger’s (NYSE:SLB) 49% interest in Argentina’s onshore Bandurria Sur block.

Each partner bought a 24.5% interest in the block that covers ~56K gross acres in the central area of the Vaca Muerta play.

The two companies also reached a preliminary agreement with 51%-owner YPF to acquire an additional 11% interest, which would give Equinor and Shell each a 30% non-operated interest and YPF owning 40% interest and continuing as operator. read more

Jan. 2, 2020 12:34 AM ET|

About: Shell Midstream Partners, L.P. (SHLX), Includes: RDS.A

Summary

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) -3% pre-market and trades nearly 4% lower in London despite beating Q3 earnings estimates, as the company warns global economic conditions could slow the timetable for its $25B share buyback program.

“Prevailing weak macroeconomic conditions and challenging outlook inevitably create uncertainty about the pace of reducing gearing to 25% and completing the share buyback program within the 2020 time frame,” CEO Ben van Beurden says.

Gearing – the ratio between debt and market cap – rose in the quarter to 27.9% from 23.1% a year earlier. read more

Just Energy to sell U.K. operations to Shell for C$17M

Oct. 8, 2019 5:45 PM ET|About: Just Energy Group Inc. (JE)|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Just Energy (NYSE:JE) +4.7% after-hours on news it agreed to sell its U.K. operations to Shell Energy Retail Ltd. (RDS.A, RDS.B) for ~C$17M.

JE says the sale of Hudson Energy Supply UK will help narrow its geographic focus and concentrate on its core operations.

In addition, JE says it has identified another C$20M/year in cost savings, to bring total annualized cost savings initiatives announced so far to C$60M.

The company also says the strategic review process initiated in June is ongoing, and it has not set a specific timeframe for the conclusion of the review. read more

Shell, Energy Transfer seek extension on Louisiana LNG project

Sep. 4, 2019 8:01 AM ET|About: Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)| By Carl Surran, SA News Editor

*Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) asks U.S. regulators to extend the time required to complete the Lake Charles liquefied natural gas export project in Louisiana by five years to 2025.

*Shell says the delay is due to its takeover of the project after its 2016 acquisition of BG Group caused it to re-evaluate and strike new agreements, according to a letter dated last Friday to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

*The project, a 50-50 venture Energy Transfer (NYSE:ET), would convert an existing import and regasification facility in Lake Charles into a multi-train, 16.45M mt/year facility. read more

May 20, 2019 5:28 PM ET|About: Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) subsidiary Shell Chemical reportedly is advancing feasibility studies for a potential $1.2B expansion of monoethylene glycol production at its Geismar, La., chemicals complex.

As part of the project, Shell would build an MEG plant at the site that it could approve as early as 2020, pending final engineering, design and investment decisions, according to the Louisiana Economic Development. read more

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) is moving to sell its stake in Indonesia’s $15B Abadi liquefied natural gas project, Reuters reports, part of its ongoing asset disposal program to raise cash to help pay for its $54B purchase of BG Group in 2015.

Shell hopes to raise ~$1B from the sale of its 35% stake in the Abadi project, according to the report.

Project construction was due to start in 2018 but was delayed in 2016 until at least 2020 after Indonesian authorities instructed a switch from an offshore to an onshore facility. read more

Japan’s JERA says it signed an agreement with a Mitsubishi unit to buy as much as 1.2M mt/year of liquefied natural gas from the Royal Dutch Shell-led (RDS.A -0.6%) LNG Canada project.

The heads of agreement is for ~15 years starting from April 2024, says JERA, a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power (OTCPK:TKECF) and Chubu Electric Power (OTC:CHUEF) and the world’s top buyer of liquefied natural gas.

Buyers from the project so far include trading house Vitol as well as Asian utilities such as Tokyo Gas, Toho Gas and Korea Gas. read more

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A +0.3%) could ramp up acquisitions of electricity producers to achieve its target of becoming the world’s biggest power company by the 2030s, Bernstein analysts say.

Shell must produce 214 terawatt hours of clean power every year by 2035 to become the biggest low-carbon electricity provider, which Bernstein says could be achieved through organic growth, ultimately managing 61 GW of power capacity, but the company probably will want to move faster and expand acquisitions of electricity producers. read more

Royal Dutch Shell (

The sale brought in the most revenue from such an event since the oil price downturn, with $244M in high offers received, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Anadarko Petroleum (APC -0.7%) and Hess (NYSE:HES) were the next highest bidders by dollar amount of high bids, totaling $24M and $18M respectively.

Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) placed the apparent high bid of the sale, offering $24.4M for Mississippi Canyon Block 801, and teaming up with Kosmos Energy (NYSE:KOS) to win Keathley Canyon Block 964 with a $7M bid. read more

Mar. 12, 2019 2:58 PM ET|About: Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A +0.4%) urges the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas production, instead of weakening them as planned.

In unusually frank terms, Shell’s U.S. chief Gretchen Watkins told the CERAWeek conference today that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to tighten rules to plug methane leaks, saying “We don’t usually tell governments how to do their job but we’re ready to break with that and say, ‘Actually, we want to tell you how to do your job.'” read more

Mar. 11, 2019 1:59 PM ET|About: Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A)| By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Colombia’s government says it signed two offshore exploration and production contracts with Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) that will require the company to make $100M in initial investments.

Shell’s investment could surpass $650M if exploration continues, according to the president of Colombia’s National Hydrocarbons Agency.

The government recently modified contractual terms for offshore exploration and launched a new process that allows companies to apply to explore in areas of interest, offering 20 blocks as part of a strategy to boost the oil sector. read more

Feb. 12, 2019 10:08 AM ET|About: BP p.l.c. (BP)|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), Eni (NYSE:E), BP and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) are among the winners of Egypt’s international tender for oil and gas exploration, with 12 concessions awarded in total.

The tender marks XOM’s entry into gas exploration in Egypt, while Shell is awarded the most concessions – three for oil and two for gas.

Egypt expects investments of at least $750M-$800M in the first stage of exploration in the 12 concessions, Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla says. read more

The Dutch High Court says it will consider demands on Jan. 17 seeking an immediate end to gas production from the Groningen field, after the government said it would cut output gradually.

The High Court says it received 26 objections to the plan, expressing concerns about seismic risks caused by drilling and demanding an urgent halt in production.

Analysts say the court is unlikely to grant an immediate halt because the Netherlands still depends on Groningen gas for a significant part of its energy supply. read more

Jan. 2, 2019 8:21 AM ET| By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) says China has awarded it a license to independently trade oil products in the country’s domestic wholesale oil market, allowing it to carry out purchases and sales of oil products for its customers in the Chinese market.

“The wholesale business of refined products has long been dominated by Chinese national oil companies and is typically reserved for Chinese companies,” says Kang Wu, head of S&P Global Platts Asia analytics. “The latest license to a wholly-owned foreign company is unique and set to increase the competitiveness of the wholesale market in China.” read more

Dec. 18, 2018 7:06 AM ET

Summary

• Enormous reductions in development costs have made new upstream oil projects in the US Gulf of Mexico quite economical.
• Royal Dutch Shell plc expects the Vito field to break even in a low pricing environment.
• Commentary on where these cost reductions are coming from, with an eye on third-party pricing deflation in the offshore space.

Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) is investing in upstream projects that are capable of earning a decent return in most oil pricing environments. The US Gulf of Mexico is one of the energy giant’s core upstream plays for this reason. In May 2018, Royal Dutch Shell plc reached first-oil at the Kaikias project in the Gulf of Mexico a year ahead of schedule. Reducing the Kaikias project’s total development costs by 30% allowed Royal Dutch Shell plc to announce that it will break even on that endeavor when realizing just $30 per barrel of oil sold. Next year, the Appomattox development in the US GoM is expected to reach first-oil and Royal Dutch Shell plc has already achieved major cost savings at that project. Farther out, the Vito development in the US GoM is expected to achieve first-oil by 2021. Let’s dig in. read more

Gas production at the earthquake-prone Groningen field will drop by at least 75% to below 5B cm/year in the next five years, the Dutch government says, as measures to reduce demand for Groningen gas are working ahead of schedule.

The government decided this year to shut down in 2030 what was once Europe’s largest natural gas field, citing several earthquakes over decades of extraction that damaged thousands of homes and buildings.

Production is set to drop to 19.4B cm in the year that began in October, already down 65% from its peak of 54B cm in 2013. read more

Nov. 19, 2018 1:04 PM ET

Summary

• Royal Dutch Shell has had a difficult time since the start of the oil crash. However, the company has an impressive portfolio and is executing on its plan.
• Royal Dutch Shell continues to earn tens of billions of dollars annually. The company is investing heavily in growth and buying back shares.
• I recommend interested investors take advantage of the current share prices given the company’s strength.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) (RDS.B) is an integrated oil company, one of the largest in the world. The company has a market cap of more than $250 billion and pays investors a very respectable dividend in the high-single digits. As we will see throughout this article, Royal Dutch Shell’s asset portfolio, growth, and potential make the company a strong investment.

Royal Dutch Shell Asset Portfolio

Royal Dutch Shell has an incredibly strong asset portfolio that will provide it with both strong production and strong cash flow. read more

Nov. 12, 2018 11:13 AM ET

Summary

• The European Oil sector has demonstrated an impressive capital discipline, with renewed focused on cash earnings.
• Royal Dutch Shell is an exceptional cash generating machine that has recently released the best quarterly results in the company’s history.
• The muted share response to the earnings report creates a wonderful entry point to an unloved sector.

My high conviction investment thesis in Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.B) is based on three success pillars. The first pillar is growth in net income, accompanied by a significant rise in free cash flow. The second pillar is shareholder friendliness, or how Shell treats its shareholders well. The third pillar, as in with every investment, is the current compelling valuation of shares

Responsible, Consistent Growth

In the third quarter, Shell generated adjusted net income in the amount of $5.6 billion, up a whopping 37 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. Earnings were 70 cents a share, up 40 percent year over year. More importantly, the company’s growth is well balanced between its different divisions. The upstream division (oil exploration) generated adjusted net income of1.88$ billion, compared to a meager 562$ million during the third quarter of 2017. read more

Callum Turcan: October 17, 2018

Summary

• Going over Royal Dutch Shell’s LNG Canada endeavor.
• The pros and the cons.
• Why this is ultimately a good idea.

Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) is making another big bet on liquefied natural gas, this time in Canada. On October 1, 2018, Royal Dutch Shell plc and its partners announced a positive investment decision on the ~US$31 billion (~40 billion Canadian dollars) Canada LNG venture. The goal is to bring an LNG export facility online in Kitimat, British Columbia, to take advantage of both its existing infrastructure (deep-water ports, roads, electricity grids) and its easy access to Asian markets. While I am a shareholder of Royal Dutch Shell, that doesn’t mean I want to be a cheerleader for every decision the company makes. Here is what I view as a very reasonable assessment of LNG Canada, highlighting both the pros and cons of this endeavor. Let’s dig in. read more

Oct. 1, 2018 11:25 AM ET| By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

An energy consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and Eni (NYSE:E) developing the Karachaganak gas condensate field will pay $1.1B to Kazakhstan’s government to settle a profit-sharing dispute, the country’s energy ministry says.

Kazakhstan says its production sharing agreement with the consortium also will amend terms so that it will receive a higher share of future revenues from one of the country’s biggest hydrocarbon fields. read more

Sep. 24, 2018 6:06 PM ET| By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Sep. 17, 2018 3:45 PM ET| By Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Sep. 6, 2018 1:30 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Aristofanis Papadatos: 25 August 2018

Summary

• Royal Dutch Shell has not cut its dividend since World War II and is currently offering a 5.6% dividend yield.
• The oil major has frozen its dividend for 18 consecutive quarters.
• The big question is whether it will raise its dividend amid excessive free cash flows and a brightening outlook of the oil sector.

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) is an oil giant that has benefited from the rally of the oil price in the last 12 months, just like its peers. However, the oil major has paid the same dividend for 18 consecutive quarters, as it froze its dividend at the onset of the downturn of the oil market that began in 2014. Therefore, the big question is whether the company will raise its dividend in the upcoming quarters.

Dividend record

Despite the downturn that began in 2014, Exxon Mobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX) and Total (TOT) have continued to raise their dividends, albeit at a low single-digit rate. BP (BP) followed the same path as Shell and froze its dividend for 15 consecutive quarters, but eventually raised it in the running quarter, thanks to the strength of the oil price and the brightening outlook of the oil market. Therefore, Shell is the only oil major that has kept its dividend flat for such a long period. read more

Aug. 14, 2018 6:19 PM ET| By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Aug. 13, 2018 12:14 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Aug. 5, 2018 8:37 AM ET

Summary

• Shell daily production dipped slightly in Q-2, causing a miss of EPS by 0.15 share.
• Investors were not impressed and discarded the stock in droves.
• In late May it reached an all time high stock price. It has since back-tracked about 10% and we are dipping our toes in at present levels.
• Shell has been transforming it’s business model in recent years, and may now deserve a higher multiple.
• Further, the 25 billion dollar stock buy back will tend to put upward pressure on the share prices.

Introduction

We were a little shocked at Shell’s, (RDS.A,RDS.B) decline on it’s Q-2 earnings release. Any serious review of operations could have foretold it. When you sell off $30 bn worth of assets that produce oil, you’re going to see a decline of this type. I mean seriously, we’re talking about 40K BOPD essentially on a company that produces over 3.5mm BOPD.

Perhaps large investors were wondering if the company is allocating capital in sufficient amounts to maintain and grow production. When we look we see that the company has been investing at a consistent rate to maintain production longer term. read more

By Zoltan Ban: 20 July 2018

Summary

By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor: 20 July 2018

By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor: 12 July 2018

Jul. 11, 2018 11:41 AM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Jun. 30, 2018 12:54 AM ET

Summary

• Renewal of assets with great focus on the future.
• Natural gas as energy source will continue to grow.
• Share buybacks and generous dividends.

Background

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) has been actively focusing on what kind of business it wants to be involved in. Part of this activity is to change the composition of its assets. It has been selling plants and oil licenses, and invested where it wants to position the company.

Disposals have also been done to reduce the total debt level. Much of the debt came from the $35 billion acquisition of BG Group back in March of 2016.

Disposals

Early this year, Shell communicated that its plans were to leave oil and gas operations in as many as 10 countries and instead focus more heavily on gas-rich Australia and shale opportunities in the United States. read more

Jun. 29, 2018 5:15 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Production at the Groningen natural gas field will come in lower than expected this year as the Dutch government works to end production completely by 2030 in an effort to limit seismic risks in the region.

Output will have fallen to 19B-20B cm in the year ending October 2018, the Dutch gas sector regulator says, below the original cap of 21.6B cm set for the year and down from 24B cm last year.

The Groningen field is a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM). read more

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) approves its second North Sea project in six months, moving forward with development of the Fram natural gas field it considered uneconomical to produce six years ago.

Shell, along with partner Exxon Mobil (XOM -1.7%), says it plans to produce as much as 13K boe/day from two wells in the Fram field by 2020, adding ~10% to the company’s current output in the U.K. North Sea.

Steve Phimister, head of Shell’s U.K. exploration and production unit, says deep cost cuts following crude’s decline and connecting smaller oil and gas pools to bigger projects are allowing it to squeeze more out of an aging North Sea, and that the company may take several more investment decisions in the North Sea this year because of the improved economics. read more

REUTERS STAFF: JUNE 13, 2018 / 4:03 PM

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s Supreme Court threw out an appeal from Shell and four former Shell managers to stymie a corruption trial that has also involved Eni’s chief executive, legal sources said on Wednesday.

The long-running graft case on alleged corruption in Nigeria, revolves around the 2011 purchase by Eni and Shell of Nigeria’s OPL-245 offshore oilfield for about $1.3 billion. The trial began last month, with the next hearing set for June 20. read more

Jun. 13, 2018 12:05 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Italy’s Supreme Court rejects an appeal from Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) and four former Shell managers to reverse a trial on alleged corruption in Nigeria, which also has implicated Eni (NYSE:E) CEO Claudio Descalzi.

The appeal hoped to reverse the trial to the preliminary hearing stage due to what it said were procedural errors, but the court ruled that the appeal was inadmissible.

Nine current and former company executives or contractors, including Descalzi, are accused by Italian prosecutors of paying bribes to secure the license to explore Nigeria’s OPL-245 offshore oilfield, which holds ~9B barrels of oil but has never entered production. read more

Jun. 8, 2018 10:39 AM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Jun. 5, 2018 1:09 AM ET

Summary

• Shell has made a huge bet on a deeply buried resource in the Gulf of Mexico.
• In this article we explain, why they continue to spend billions of dollars in Deepwater, when other companies have abandoned it.
• We also provide a range where we would consider adding to our Shell position.

FULL ARTICLE

May 25, 2018 12:58 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

A confidential study that Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) has been accused of trying to shield from public view showed worsening “catastrophic” pollution around oil spill sites in Nigeria, WSJ reports.

At least one of the study’s authors has urged the findings to be widely distributed because they pointed to significant health risks to the local Bodo community in Nigeria but said that Shell had denied him permission to publish the study’s results in a scientific journal, according to the WSJ report. read more

A federal judge yesterday said he needed more information before deciding whether to dismiss lawsuits by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland alleging that Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), BP and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) should pay to protect residents from the impacts of climate change.

The judge also wants the companies to produce additional material backing up claims that they should not be a part of the case because the court lacked jurisdiction over them. read more

Tristan R. Brown: April 30, 2018

Summary

• Royal Dutch Shell’s latest Energy Transition Report contains a demand outlook for oil and gas that is quite conservative compared to its industry peers.
• The company’s demand outlook is higher than what will likely be possible if the Paris Climate Agreement’s emissions targets are to be achieved, however.
• Almost 90% of respondents in a recent survey of major asset managers believe that climate risks will have a “significant” impact on oil and gas company valuations in the near-term.

The release of two separate reports in as many weeks on how integrated oil and gas producers will manage an anticipated transition toward low-carbon energy is likely to leave investors in Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A)(RDS.B) with some questions. The company released its new Energy Transition Report earlier this month, and the final product presents its strategy for maintaining its operations even as the world’s major economies (with the exception of the U.S.) work to meet their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets under the Paris Climate Agreement. The report’s relatively phlegmatic conclusion stands in stark contrast to the results of an annual survey by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association that identified strong concern from asset managers on the same count. read more

Tristan R. Brown: Apr. 16, 2018 12:44 PM ET

Summary

• A Netherlands environmental NGO has threatened to bring yet another climate change lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell if it does not fundamentally change its business operations.
• While multinational corporations are constantly being threatened with legal action, this specific one is unique.
• It has the hallmarks of recent climate lawsuits against Shell in the U.S., but would be based in a court system that has mandated stricter climate policy before.

Can non-shareholder private entities force oil and gas companies to accept lower returns on capital? Investors in Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) (RDS.B) will receive an answer to this question if an environmental NGO moves forward with a threatened lawsuit in the Netherlands that would require the company to do exactly that.

Notably, Shell recently committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% through 2050 via billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy capacity. The NGO in question, Friends of the Earth Netherlands (aka Milieudefensie), deems this effort insufficient and insists that the company must abandon its oil and gas reserves and be “net zero” (i.e., no net emissions of greenhouse gases) by that date instead. While Shell’s investors largely shrugged off the threat (see figure), if they even noticed it at all, the development represents the opening of a new front in the lawsuits being waged by U.S. municipalities against the company and its Big Oil competitors. read more

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) urges shareholders to oppose a resolutionfrom activist investors that would hold the company to firm targets for cutting carbon emissions, even as it reiterates its commitment to fighting climate change.

Climate activist Follow This is offering a resolution for Shell’s May 22 annual general meeting urging the company to set more aggressive targets aligned with the Paris climate deal goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

“We will not be tied to an approach that potentially moves too quickly or too slowly to this transition,” says CEO Ben van Beurden. “If society finds a way to go faster, we will go faster… but we cannot do it single-handedly.” read more