31st Jan 2019 07:19
LONDON (Alliance News) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday said earnings shot up in 2018, slightly beating consensus, as London's largest listed company by market value commenced the latest tranche of its share buyback programme.
Shell's current cost of supply (CCS) earnings excluding identified items attributable to shareholders, the firm's preferred metric, rose 36% to USD21.40 billion from USD15.76 billion in 2017. Analyst consensus had predicted CCS earnings of USD20.98 billion.
In the Upstream segment, CCS earnings came in at USD6.78 billion, versus USD3.09 billion last year and consensus of USD6.69 billion
Integrated Gas CCS earnings came in at USD9.40 billion versus USD5.27 billion last year. Consensus had forecast USD9.37 billion.
Shell's Downstream earnings came in at USD7.57 billion for the year. Analysts had pencilled in USD7.07 billion. In 2017 the company had generated earnings of USD9.08 billion from the division.
For the fourth quarter alone, group CCS earnings were USD5.69 billion, up 32% compared to USD4.30 billion for the same three-month period a year ago. Consensus stood at USD5.28 billion.
Revenue for 2018 came in at USD388.38 billion, up 27% from USD305.18 billion last year.
"Shell delivered a very strong financial performance in 2018, with cash flow from operations of USD49.6 billion, excluding working capital movements," said Chief Executive Ben van Beurden.
"We delivered on our promises for the year, including the completion of the USD30 billion divestment programme and starting up key growth projects while maintaining discipline on capital investment," he added. "We paid our entire dividend in cash, further reduced our debt and launched our share buyback programme, with USD4.5 billion in shares repurchased so far."
Shell kept its total dividend payout for the year flat at USD1.88 per share. The oil firm also on Thursday said it has commenced the third tranche of its share buyback programme.
Shell will buyback USD2.5 billion worth of shares under the latest tranche, aiming to repurchase at least USD25 billion by the end of 2020.
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