Royal Dutch Shells second quarter 2011 earnings nearly doubled on higher oil prices with profits jumping to US$8.66 billion compared with US$4.5 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser commented: "Our second quarter 2011 earnings were higher than year-ago levels, driven by increased energy prices and Shell's operating performance."
"In Upstream, our volumes increased by two per cent driven by new growth projects. In Downstream, maintenance activities and weak industry refining margins masked a resilient performance from Oil Products marketing and Chemicals in the quarter," Voser added.
In a company statement, Shell said that its production for the second quarter 2011 was two per cent higher than in the same quarter last year. New field start-ups and the continuing ramp-up of fields contributed some 285 thousand boe/d to production in the second quarter 2011, which more than offset the impact of field declines.
LNG sales volumes of 4.81 million tonnes in the second quarter 2011 were 24 per cent higher than in the same quarter a year ago.
On the downstream side, oil products sales volumes for the second quarter 2011 were eight per cent lower than in the second quarter 2010. Sales volumes were four per cent lower than in the same period last year. Chemical product sales volumes also decreased in the second quarter 2011 by 13 per cent compared with the second quarter 2010.
Voser talked about Shell's three year strategy which was "on track."
"2011 is an important year for Shell‟s growth programme, and I‟m very pleased that we've started up three large projects – two in Qatar and one in Canada," stated Voser.
In Qatar, the Qatargas 4 project, which came on stream during the first quarter 2011, has now fully ramped up, reaching planned capacity of 7.8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG. In the second quarter 2011, the new Pearl Gas-To-Liquids (GTL) project in Qatar sold its first GTL gasoil shipment from Train 1.
"In total, these three projects are expected to contribute peak production of over 400 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) for Shell, after some US$30 billion of investment, underpinning our targets for financial and production growth to 2012."
