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Shell suffers fall of profit in first quarter

Xinhua, April 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

The profit of Royal Dutch Shell in the first quarter of 2015 declined significantly, mainly due to the decrease in oil and gas prices, the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant stated on Thursday.

In the first quarter of 2015, current cost of supplies (CCS) earnings were 3.246 billion U.S. dollars (2.912 billion euros) compared with 7.327 billion for the first quarter of 2014, a decrease of 56 percent. Earnings on a CCS basis were 4.761 billion dollars compared with 4.465 billion in the first quarter of 2014.

"The CCS earnings excluding identified items benefited from improved Downstream results reflecting steps taken by the company to improve financial performance, higher realized refining margins, lower costs, and increased trading contributions," Shell stated.

"In Upstream, earnings were impacted by the significant decline in oil and gas prices and lower trading contributions," the company added.

The CCS earnings excluding identified items for Downstream went up from 1.575 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2014 to 2.646 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year. The CCS earnings excluding identified items for Upstream dropped from 5.710 billion dollars in Q1 last year to 675 million dollars in Q1 2015. The revenue of Shell in the first quarter of 2015 was 65.706 billion dollars, compared to 109.658 billion in the same period last year.

"Our results reflect the strength of our integrated business activities, against a backdrop of lower oil prices," Shell's CEO Ben van Beurden said in a press release. "Meanwhile, in what is clearly a difficult industry environment, we continue to take steps to further improve competitive performance."

On April 8 this year, Shell announced a 72-billion-dollar (47 billion British pound) takeover of the British oil and gas company BG Group. "Looking ahead, the proposed combination with BG, which we announced in April, would create a stronger company," Van Beurden said. Enditem