Shell Launches Quarterly Previews

Anglo-Dutch major Shell launched September 30 quarterly updates on its business, starting with the third quarter.  It said it was responding to the investor community's call for it to enhance disclosures and increase transparency. The impacts presented may vary from the actual results and are subject to finalisation which are scheduled to be released on October 31, 2019, it warned.

Integrated Gas production is expected to be between 930,000 and 960,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day (boe/d), and liquefaction volumes between 9.0mn and 9.3mn metric tons. It expects strong trading and optimisation performance but said that last year more than 80% of its term contracts for LNG sales were oil price linked, the rest being sold on the spot market.

Oil prices in Q1 and Q2, which would impact Q3 LNG term sales, were weak, while spot prices during the quarter, in Asia and Europe, were exceptionally low. Cash-flow from operations can be impacted by margining resulting from movements in the forward commodity curves, it said.

Upstream production, outside Integrated Gas, is expected to be between 2.60mn and 2.65mn boe/d. There have been well write-offs in the range of $250mn-$350mn compared to Q3 2018, for which no cash impact is expected. Natural gas liquids and gas prices continue to be disconnected from Brent compared to Q3 2018, it said.