LONDON (Alliance News) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday reported one of its best ever quarters, with earnings soaring on higher oil prices.
For the three months to September, Shell's current cost of supplies earnings excluding items rose 38% to USD5.79 billion.
CCS earnings attributable to shareholders was up 51% to USD5.57 billion, and the figure excluding exceptional items climbed 37% to USD5.62 billion.
Total production did fall, however, by 2% year-on-year to 3.6 million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
Shell expects Integrated Gas output to fall in the fourth quarter due to divestments, though Upstream will rise due to lower maintenance and growth from new fields.
Shell is paying a quarterly dividend of 47 US cents, in line quarter-on-quarter. It also is starting the second part of its share buyback programme, paying USD2.5 billion up to January next year.
Cash flow from operating activities increased 59% year-on-year to USD12.09 billion, while free cash flow jumped to USD8.01 billion from USD3.67 billion.
"Earnings primarily benefited from increased realised oil, gas and LNG prices as well as higher contributions from trading in Integrated Gas, partly offset by lower margins in Downstream, higher deferred tax charges in Upstream and adverse currency exchange effects," Shell commented.
Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said: "Good operational delivery across all Shell businesses produced one of our strongest-ever quarters, with cash flow from operations of USD14.7 billion, excluding working capital movements."
"Our strong financial performance allowed us to cover the cash dividend, interest payments, share buybacks and to further pay down debt," van Beurden continued.
"Our strategy remains on track. We have completed the first tranche of share buybacks, in line with our intention to purchase USD25 billion of our shares by the end of 2020, and today I'm pleased to announce the second tranche. Meanwhile, the transformation of our portfolio continued, with further divestments of non- strategic assets and the final investment decision on LNG Canada."
