Boston, MA 05/01/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (NYSE:RDS.A), the biggest European oil company, posted first quarter results beating the analyst estimates on account of higher natural gas revenues.
Includes $2.3 Billion Impairment Charge
The first-quarter profit excluding inventory changes and one time items fell 3% to $7.3 billion over the last one year. This beats the average analyst forecast of $5 billion, according to the Bloomberg. The company’s Chief Financial Officer, Simon Henry, told analysts that the results were inclusive of a $3.3 billion earnings from solid liquefied natural gas operations. However, the earnings were partially offset by a $2.3 billion charge in connection with the refineries in Asia and Europe. Resultantly, its net income fell 45% to $4.5 billion during the quarter.
The Anglo-Dutch company pumped 3.25 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day as against 3.56 million boe per day in the previous year. LNG sales grew 18% to 6.1 million metric tons in the reported period. Overall, the earnings were severely affected by higher exploration expenses on account of well write-offs, higher costs and depreciation. Moreover, production cap limits and curtailment at its Exxon Mobil project also played some role in lowering down earnings.
Soaring Prices Supported Earnings
Shell, which has nearly $80 billion of capital deployed in North America has been able to gain advantage of the rising fuel prices in the continent during the quarter. It is noteworthy that the fuel prices have grown nearly 36% in the first quarter. Ben Van Beurdan, who recently succeeded the company’s earlier CEO, Peter Voser, had earlier warned in January of lower profits for the first time since 2004, mainly due to loss-making operations in the America. However, the first quarter numbers have come strong, unexpected, which is a good start for the year, as per the analyst Bertrand Hodee at Raymond James Financials Inc.
