European record of «Shell» with high profits to 31 billion dollars in 2008
Category: World Oil & Gas news | Posted on: 2-02-2009
«Royal Dutch Shell» giant Anglo-Dutch oil company announced yesterday (Thursday) that its annual profits last year increased by 14% to reach 31.4 billion dollars, which is a record in history of British and European companies.
This result was achieved due to a record of high oil prices last summer, where as profits declined during the last quarter of last year rose by 28% compared to the same period the previous year due to the drop in prices in this period, «Shell» said the profits during the last quarter last year, declined sharply at 4.8 billion dollars against 6.7 billion dollars in the same period a year ago.
The last quarter profits were down by 56% compared to the previous quarter. It should be noted that the price of oil reached an unprecedented level, 147 $ a barrel in July, before retreating to below 50$ a barrel late last year.
The profits does not include the current cost of supplies, the unrealized gains or losses on the change values of stocks of fuel and can be compared with the net profits of U.S. companies.
And many investors buy shares of Shell and maintain because of the large cash dividends, and some feared that the decline in oil prices affect the dividend. But the company eased these concerns by declaring an increase of five percent in profit distributions from the first quarter of this year to 0.42 $ per share.
On the other hand, oil company Royal Dutch Shell said all the major projects currently under construction go ahead despite fears that the program to expand U.S. refinery has lost momentum.
Reuters quoted the spokesman Adam Newton said when asked about the report that the slowdown of work in the Port Arthur refinery owned by Saudi Aramco Shell with «all the projects after the final investment decision to proceed with the planned start-up» is scheduled to complete the work of expansion in 2010.
The expansion of Port Arthur at the bottom of the list published by Shell on the Internet for projects scheduled to enter service in 2010 and 2011.
