* Forties trades at dated Brent minus 25 cents * Little impact from weekend Buzzard outage * Nine May Forties cargoes now advanced LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - North Sea Forties crude pricedifferentials held steady on Wednesday as the May programmecontinued to clear slowly and more cargoes were advanced. At least nine May cargoes have now moved up the loadingschedule after better-than-expected production in April. A small outage at the Buzzard oilfield on Sunday had littleimpact, market participants said, with Buzzard back near itsmaximum operating capacity of 210,000 barrels-per-day onTuesday. Traders said that the market for May cargoes had been veryweak and slow, although it has picked up a little lately, withrefineries such as Total's Donges now back from springmaintenance. "A weak North Sea was a big surprise to everybody - my guesswas that poor sweet refinery margins last week made people cutruns, but now margins are on the way up again," a trader said. ATMI's booking of the Suezmax Glorycrown to take Forties tothe U.S. Gulf Coast on May 1 appears to have failed, traderssaid. But BP's booking of the Suezmax Achilleas to take Ekofiskto the U.S. Gulf Coast at end-April still seems to be goingahead. FORTIES * Shell sold a Forties cargo loading May 17-19 to Total atdated Brent minus 25 cents. This was firmer than Monday's tradeat dated Brent minus 30 cents for Forties loading May 3-5, butin line with Total's last bid on Tuesday for May 15-20 Forties. * Total also bid for Forties loading May 6-11 at July cashBFOE minus 90 cents. * Mercuria was seeking Forties loading around May 17-21 atdated Brent minus 30 cents. SWAPS * The swaps curve remained in contango, reflecting theabundant supply of crude at the front end: 29-03/5 Jul -67 07-10/5 Jul -58 13-17/5 Jul -43 20-24/5 Jul -35 28-31/5 Jul -35 03-07/6 Jul -35 DATABASE
Shell announces $4bn share buyback as Q3 profits beat expectations
(Sharecast News) - Oil giant Shell announced a $4bn share buyback on Thursday as it posted better-than-expected third-quarter profits.
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