Member Info for FJGooner

What a complete load of drivel. Did you bother to listen to the live audio webcast of the third quarter results today from 1.30 to 2.30? No - thought not. Otherwise, you'd have given up the ghost on your short and capped your increasing losses. The Q&A session lasted for about 45 minutes after the main body of the presentation and un-earthed some real gems for Shell bulls. I'd really hate to be short on this "puppy" as you - a shorter - calls it. A world class investment case as anyone not short would more likely term it - as offered by the board itself. Commodity prices will ebb & flow. Of course they will. Always have, always will. But the current macro-cycle lows are very clearly in - as of January 2016 - and the cycle will move on. As for your shorter spiel on financials - put the effort in and hear the webcast. Shell is in superb shape with many assets that were fully paid for during 2012-2015 by us investors coming on stream now and adding huge cash flows in the immediate future - with many generating good profit "in oil prices beginning with a $4". So yet more sub-$50/barrel profits are coming on stream - adding a further $10billion per annum to cash flow by 2020 in a $60 Brent average price level during the 2017-2020 period. Hear the webcast just for the update on Permian - our company's acreage is now hitting massive market prices. And for the LNG strategy that is pushing future new markets and the BG synergy that is already yielding massive cost savings way ahead of time and above expectation. Please - all shorters - short some more. You may get the odd few days when your speculator friends are playing in your favour, but long term Shell is one hell of a compelling investment case. I will hold for the virtually 100% certain to be maintained and/or increased dividends. My estate-clan can sell if they want to in the distant future - more short-term, in the forthcoming up-cycle should we see more than £32 per RDSB share in 2/3 years perhaps? The next company-stated series of targets (as per today's webcast) is to reduce net gearing with a "sustainable line of sight" to approx 20. Currently it is 29 (or an effective 27 as described in the webcast). Next would be to retire the scrip program. Thereafter to re-commence share buybacks. NO talk of dividends ever being in play for reduction. Shorters should study their subject rather more carefully and then they may learn something of relevance. If you wanted to short a major oiler, BP was you chance. But yesterday. :) FJ :)

Well I must agree to a certain extent. I say goodbye to my Shell dividends 4 times a year - as I deposit them into various banking and investment accounts. :) People like myself have been saying goodbye to our Shell dividends in this manner since World War Two - without ever once seeing the dividend cut. But it often seems that some shorters can't simply place their positions without posting unfounded scare stories. This behaviour has no effect whatsoever on a massively traded share such as this. At the latest Annual General Meeting of Shell in May, the CEO chose to finish his speech with 5 consecutive sentences each of which focussed positively on the company's commitment to the dividend - that seems a pretty definitive position to me. Especially when the industry had only just come through the latest lows of the current cycle at the time of that speech. ---------------------------- Let me finish with highlighting our strong track record on dividends, and dividends are the company’s main route to return cash to shareholders. Over the last 5 years, in total, we have declared more dividends than any of our sector peer group. The dividend is expected to be maintained at $1.88 per share in 2016, despite today’s lower oil prices. This is an annualised figure of around $12 billion of dividends declared. All of this underlines your company’s dividend track record and our commitment to returns to shareholders. Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer, Royal Dutch Shell plc The Hague on May 24, 2016

From The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/28/opec-crude-deal-sends-oil-prices-surging/ Opec crude deal sends oil prices surging By Ben Martin 28 September 2016 • 8:30pm The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has struck a deal to cut crude output for the first time in eight years, a landmark agreement that sent oil prices surging. Brent crude leapt 5.2pc to $48.40 a barrel this evening as news filtered out from the Opec meeting in Algeria that an agreement had been reached to cut output to 32.5m barrels per day, down from the current rate of 33.24m. The cartel, which supplies about 40pc of the world’s crude, is expected to iron out the details of each country’s specific production limits at the next formal Opec meeting in November. The deal is an important boost for the energy companies around the world, which have been hit hard by the oil price rout in recent years. A global glut of crude has sent the price of brent tumbling from a peak of $115 a barrel in June 2014 to as low as $27.88 in January, a drop that has exerted huge pressure on the energy industry. The agreement to cut output also marks a significant shift in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The two countries have been at loggerheads over oil production for the past two years and are geopolitical rivals. Riyadh and Tehren have been supporting opposing sides in the civil wars raging in Yemen and Syria. Oil traders had been pessimistic about the prospects for a deal heading into this week's informal Opec meeting in Algiers. At a similar Opec meeting in Doha in April the cartel had failed to reach an agreement on an output freeze.

Expect a minimum 3% rise tomorrow to a close of RDSB to around 19.52. FJ

We're off! First details .... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-idUSKCN11X03E Oil soars 6 percent as OPEC reaches deal to limit output in November Oil prices jumped as much as 6 percent on Wednesday after OPEC sources said the group has reached a deal to limit crude output at its policy meeting in November, a source for the producer group said. Brent crude LCOc1 was up $2.76, or 6 percent, at $48.73 a barrel by 2:28 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT), after reaching a more than two-week high of $48.96. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 rose by $2.35, or 5.4 percent, to $47.02, peaking at $47.45, its highest since Sept 8. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has agreed to limit production to 32.5 million barrels per day, OPEC sources said after talks held by the group on the sidelines of the Sept. 26-28 International Energy Forum in Algiers. The latest production figure for the group is 33.24 million bpd. After reaching that target, OPEC will seek support from non-member oil producers to further ease the global glut, the sources said. "This was unexpected for sure ... no one that I know of saw it coming. The market doesn’t seem positioned for it. The fundamentals in the U.S. are already tighter than we expected and is due to get tighter," said Scott Shelton, energy broker and commodities specialist for ICAP in Durham, North Carolina.

OPEC deal looks set! Details coming through right now ....

Hi Baz, Have a read of these links - I hope this helps: https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-shares/same-company http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/2089471.stm

Agreed. I couldn't even imagine selling Shell. It is just not in my investment DNA. That discipline has served me very well over the last few years, Every year I add - last year was like a free bonus to be able to add sub £20. Sub £30 may well seem like a bargain in 3 years' time and the dividend yield even then will be massively compelling. Currently near to 7% and possibly going much, MUCH higher on Sterling weakness. As for: Never sell Shell. I bought another tiny batch today at £20.76 for about £8K to add to an ISA. I'll be buying at any prices until yield drops below 4 percent. My current Shell yield is very healthy and always goes back into Shell. Work out your mathematics - a global company booking many costs and yielding in converted Sterling. Hugely under-priced right now. Rather nice :).

Shell Seen as Best Oil Major Wager by Analysts After BG Deal http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-09/shell-seen-as-best-oil-major-wager-by-analysts-after-bg-deal by Rakteem Katakey March 9, 2016 — 8:56 AM GMT Extract of highlights - well worth reading the full article ... >>> Analysts estimate Shell shares will rise 12.2% over 12 months >>> Company has most buy recommendations among 9 biggest producers Ben Van Beurden staked his reputation on Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $53 billion acquisition of BG Group Plc as crude slumped. Analysts are rewarding the chief executive officer by putting the enlarged company in pole position to exploit a market upturn. Shell’s shares will rise about 12.2 percent in the next 12 months, the most among the world’s six biggest non-state oil companies, according to the target prices of analysts compiled by Bloomberg. More than 65 percent of analysts who cover Europe’s largest oil producer recommend buying the stock, the highest share among its peers. ...... After using more than $10 billion of cash to pay for the acquisition, Shell’s gearing, a measure of its net debt to equity, will rise to “low-20 percent” from about 14 percent at the end of 2015, Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said last month. It’s U.K. peer BP Plc had a ratio of 21.6 percent at the end of December, an increase of almost 5 percentage points from a year earlier. “Shell’s balance sheet is safe even after the acquisition as we can see from the gearing levels,” said Alexandre Andlauer, an oil analyst at AlphaValue SAS in Paris. “There’s been a lot of cost cutting already, and they’ll probably find more synergies from the BG deal than they have announced.” Operational Synergies The company has announced it will realize $3.5 billion in operational synergies from BG. The deal also gives Shell high-margin production in Brazil and Australia and gas assets in Kazakhstan, Trinidad and Tanzania. .... Shell, which will update investors on the integration of BG when it announces first-quarter earnings in May, has said the deal will help it maintain its dividend payouts and add to cash at any oil price. “The momentum is with Shell now and that will continue this year,” Andlauer said by phone. “They’ve done a lot of cost-cutting and portfolio management and analysts and investors like that.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35629420 Extract The International Energy Agency (IEA) is warning consumers not to let cheap oil lull them into a false sense of security amid forecasts of a price spike by 2021. In a report, the IEA said it expects prices to start recovering in 2017. But it forecasts that will be followed by a sharp jump in price as supply shrinks following under-investment by struggling producers. Brent crude touched a 13-year low of $28.88 a barrel in January. It has since recovered somewhat, but is still far below a high of $115 in June 2014. On Monday the price was up around 4.9% at $34.62. Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: "It is easy for consumers to be lulled into complacency by ample stocks and low prices today, but they should heed the writing on the wall: the historic investment cuts we are seeing raise the odds of unpleasant oil-security surprises in the not-too-distant-future."

Shell expects its Brazil output to quadruple by 2020 http://gulftoday.ae/portal/fffc0fb9-289b-4fa0-b824-f5d619fe0c44.aspx RIO DE JANEIRO: Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, expects to make robust investments in Brazil’s offshore resources, hoping to quadruple oil and gas output there by the end of the decade, its chief executive officer said. CEO Ben van Beurden spoke in Brazil after Shell’s $52 billion takeover of BG Group, approved in late January, took effect. Thanks to BG’s large portfolio of assets in Brazil and Shell’s decision to buy 20 per cent of the giant Libra offshore project in 2013, Brazil will be a key area for the Anglo-Dutch company as it focuses on liquefied natural gas and deepwater oil production, van Beurden said. Shell is rushing in as other companies cut back in the face of Brazil’s worst recession in decades, and as a plunge in oil prices and a corruption scandal at state-run Petroleo Brasileiro slow local oil and gas growth. “We believe in the strong fundamentals of Brazil and the fundamentals of its geology,” van Beurden told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. “We will be looking at a substantial part of our production from Brazil.” By adding BG’s large Brazilian offshore assets, Shell’s local output rose six-fold to about 240,000 barrels of oil and natural gas equivalent a day (boepd), or 13 per cent of Shell’s total of 1.8 million boepd. A quadrupling of its Brazilian output would boost production to nearly 1 million boepd by 2020. Shell is already Brazil’s No. 2 producer after Petroleo Brasileiro, known as Petrobras. In December, Shell and BG had 7.6 per cent of Brazil’s total output of just over 3 million barrels a day. The BG takeover also makes Shell the world’s largest trader of liquefied natural gas. While it sells LNG to Petrobras for the Brazilian market, van Beurden and his Brazilian deputy, Andre Araujo, declined to say if they want to buy Petrobras’ natural gas assets, some of which are for sale. Brazil’s importance to Shell is expected to increase as the company moves ahead with giant subsalt projects such as Libra, which it is developing with Petrobras, France’s Total, China’s CNOOC and CNPC.

There's a page on the Shell website that's worth reading - Shell CEO Ben van Beurden's article in The Times newspaper yesterday - all very positive. http://www.shell.com/media/speeches-and-articles/articles-by-date/a-springboard-for-transformation.html Extract Yesterday saw the birth of a new player in the global energy industry. In the middle of some of the toughest market conditions seen in decades, the joining together of Shell and BG creates a company of extraordinary strengths, a combination greater than the sum of our parts. I feel privileged to be part of this historic, transformative moment. It has been an intense ten months since we first announced the combination with BG and yesterday was a very special milestone for us, officially the first day of operations for the combined company. It also has been a period of great volatility. Although the oil price has fallen since our announcement, I remain convinced of the strategic and financial merits of the deal. Over time, I expect the fundamentals of energy supply and demand to reassert themselves and the strategic and economic benefits of the deal to fully deliver for shareholders. The deal reinvigorates Shell and will be a springboard for further transformation. We now plan to shape a simpler, leaner, more agile and competitive company focusing on our priorities for growth in liquefied natural gas and deep water. The acquisition significantly boosts our oil and gas reserves and production capacity and is expected to provide a strong injection to our operating cashflow. It underpins our role as one of the world’s largest independent producers of LNG. This deal is not about size, though. It is about quality. The combined value of our existing and potential energy projects creates a company more able to brave the cycles in our industry and strengthens our ability to pay the dividend at any oil price that might reasonably be expected.

This sounds pretty promising news: <a href='http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shell-cancels-144-billion-bridge-credit-facility-2016-02-11' target='window'>http://www.marketwatch.com/story/shell-cancels-144-billion-bridge-credit-facility-2016-02-11</a> Shell cancels $14.4 billion bridge credit facility By Ian Walker Published: Feb 11, 2016 2:33 a.m. ET LONDON--Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC RDSA said Thursday it has cancelled the 10.07 billion pound ($14.4 billion) bridge credit facility that was agreed last May to pay for its acquisition of BG Group PLC (BG.LN) as it is now able to fund the deal from its own cash resources. Last month Shell and BG shareholders approved Shell's roughly $50 billion proposed takeover of BG, paving the way for completion of the biggest oil and gas deal in over a decade. --------- Also covered at: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/royal-dutch-shell-plc--cancellation-of-bridge-credit-facility-568424841.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/12154388/North-Sea-crisis-raises-UK-gas-supply-risk-former-energy-minister-warns.html North Sea crisis raises UK gas supply risk, former energy minister warns The global glut of gas and oil is expected to give way to a supply shortfall by 2020 - and the UK is unprepared Extract By Jillian Ambrose, Business Reporter 4:05PM GMT 12 Feb 2016 The UK could face gas supply shocks and spiking prices as the oil rout accelerates the decline of North Sea reserves, former energy minister Charles Hendry has warned. The Privy Council member said that the UK’s increasing dependence on imported gas meant that without investment in gas storage, the UK could become increasingly exposed to supply interruptions. In 2012 a cut in gas supply from Russia and Ukraine caused prices to spike, and a year later a Belgian pipeline outage in early spring led to record highs in the UK gas market because domestic storage facilities were already empty.

Your sentiment is fine, but with Dark Pools operating at full tilt, why bother? Good luck to you though.

Ooh, ooh, Caitlin. You forgot your daily Price of Oil update. Why's that? Is it because it is UP +9.07% again. Come on, if you're going to post your Price of Oil updates, keep consistent. Shorters make me laugh.

As predicted, the doom-monger caitlin re-appears bleating the very moment a drop in oil price occurs - how's the short going? Don't forget to bleat on when it bounces up again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/12144158/Picking-stocks-Sometimes-the-decision-is-a-no-brainer.html Picking stocks? Sometimes the decision is a no-brainer Shell is paying out pretty much all its profits to shareholders Extract When Shell announced an 80pc drop in profits last week, its shares rose by 6pc, making it one of the best performers in the FTSE 100. That might sound perverse, but it makes complete sense when you consider that the oil major had become what I call a “one-decision stock”. That’s a company for which the decision to invest is so dominated by one consideration that anything else is academic. In the case of Shell, the consideration was very simple. Would the company maintain its $1.88 (£1.30) dividend? Shell’s shares have fallen so far in two years – from a high in May 2014 of 2,592p to a low last month of 1,278p – that holding the pay-out would provide a new investor with an income yield of almost exactly 10pc. With the monetary policy committee at the Bank of England now unanimous on keeping interest rates at their 300-year low of 0.5pc, a sustainable 10pc income is as close to a no-brainer as equity investment can provide. By the time the results were announced Shell’s shares had rallied a bit from January’s low point so the yield was “only” 9pc, but it was still firmly in “one-decision” territory. Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden was never going to guarantee the dividend in 2016 but he could hardly have been clearer about his intentions. Cutting capital expenditure by a quarter, shedding 10,000 jobs and selling assets worth $40bn is a set of measures with only one aim – to ensure that he does not go down in history as the first Shell boss to cut the dividend since 1945.

BG Group in 'excellent' shape for Shell's £35bn takeover http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/641593/BG-Group-Shell-35bn-takeover Extract BG GROUP said it was in “excellent” shape ahead of a £35billion takeover by former rival Shell as it ramped up production and drove down costs in the face of sliding oil prices. The FTSE 100 oil and gas group reported a surge in output in Australia and Brazil – key growth markets identified by Shell to justify the deal – beating its target to deliver a daily average of 704,000 barrels of oil per day last year, up 16 per cent on the previous year. Volumes increased by 20 per cent in the fourth quarter. Its liquefied natural gas business, which will help turn Shell into the world’s biggest LNG trader, delivered 63 per cent more volumes in 2015 as activity was stepped up at its Queensland Curtis facility in Australia.

Ooh, ooh Caitlin - come on, keep up with your enthusiastic updates. :) Brent Oil Futures closed up 8.44% at $35.48 (taking the 9pm cut-off as is the norm). And prices are also still going up from there as I post. *** END OF P.O.O. UPDATES - HOPEFULLY MY POINT TO CAITLIN NOW MADE ***