Soaring crude cost helps to double Shell profit
We enter 2018 with continued discipline and confidence. Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell
OIL GIANT Royal Dutch Shell has hailed a “strong” annual performance after profits more than doubled thanks to the surging cost of crude.
The group posted underlying earnings of $15.8bn (£11.2bn) for 2017, up from $7.2bn (£5.1bn) the previous year.
Shell said bottom line profits jumped to $12.1bn (£8.5bn), up from $3.5bn (£2.5bn) in 2016, while fourth quarter underlying earnings rose 140 per cent to $4.3bn (£3bn).
The group’s results have benefited as oil prices have risen past $70 a barrel for the first time in more than three years, boosted by supply curbs from oil cartel Opec, a record run of declines in US crude inventories and a weaker US dollar.
Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Shell, said: “2017 was a year of strong financial performance for Shell. A year of transformation, in which we showed we have what it takes to deliver a world-class investment case.”
“We enter 2018 with continued discipline and confidence, committed to the delivery of strong returns and cash,” he added.
The group said its annual earnings, which came in just higher than City expectations, were bolstered by the oil price rally and higher production levels from new oil fields, which offset declines from existing fields as well as its mammoth asset-selling programme.
It said it had already completed $24bn (£16.9bn) of the $30bn (£21.2bn) divestment plan launched in the wake of its takeover of BG Group in 2016.
The remaining $6bn (£4.2bn) is already announced or near completion, it added.
Shell’s figures also confirmed it took a $2bn (£1.4bn) charge in the fourth quarter from President Donald Trump’s US tax reforms.