What a shock. Listening to the news this morning it was clear to me that Shell has done slightly better than expected and the market was happy. In fact Shell is up 60 this morning. Imagine my surprise when I read the "shock horror" headline, and this from a, so called, Business Reporter. Not having read the accounts I am assuming that the "exceptional items" include a great deal of write downs which of course do not affect the cash position. More information and less hyperbole would have been helpful. Royal Dutch Shell has become the latest victim of the oil price rout after it confirmed 10,000 jobs would be axed amid its sharpest decline in income in 13 years. Pummelled by low crude prices, income for the year slumped 87pc to $1.9bn. The oil major said earnings on a current cost of supplies basis, its preferred way of measuring profits, tumbled 56pc in the final three months of 2015 to $1.8bn, compared to $4.2bn in the previous year. The torrid quarter took its toll on the Anglo-Dutch group, dragging its full-year profit from $19bn in 2014 to $3.8bn - an 80pc fall. Excluding exceptional items, profits for the year came in marginally below market expectations at $10.7bn. Earnings in Shell's upstream business - which seeks out and produces oil - were hindered by “the significant decline in oil and gas prices”, the group said. Ben van Beurden, chief executive, said: “We are making substantial changes in the company reorganising our upstream, and reducing costs and capital investment, as we refocus Shell, and respond to lower oil prices”.
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