* Oil trading helps offset collapse in fuel demand
* Trading accounted for 43% of oil products earnings
(Adds details, graphics)
By Ron Bousso
LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell's
2020 earnings from trading crude oil and refined products
doubled from the previous year to $2.6 billion, providing a
boost to offset a sharp drop in fuel demand due to the
coronavirus pandemic.
Shell's oil trading operations, known internally as Trading
& Supply, accounted for 43% of the Oil Products division's total
earnings of $5.995 billion in 2020. Trading earnings totalled
$1.3 billion in 2019, according to the report, which was
released on Thursday.
The unusually high contribution from trading helped Shell
weather one of the toughest years in the industry's history,
when energy consumption collapsed during the pandemic.
Shell, the world's largest energy trader, experienced a 28%
drop in oil sales last year to 4.71 million barrels per day on
average, the report said.
Its 2020 profit dropped to its lowest in at least two
decades.
Shell is also the world's largest liquefied natural gas
trader. It also sells and buys power.
Rival BP's trading arm made nearly $4 billion in
2020, according to a copy of an internal BP presentation seen by
Reuters, almost equalling 2019's record trading
profit.
Companies can make large profits even during times of lower
demand for commodities by storing products such as oil on shore
or at sea. Shell's vast refining, trading and retail operations
also allow it to take advantage of short-lived changes in supply
and demand around the world.
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Edmund Blair, Jason Neely,
Kirsten Donovan)
