Shell Share Discussion Threads

[waldron] 16/11/2017 22:21

chuckle

hoggy

obviously they have seen the error of their ways and wish to make amens

by appeasing the gods

not a done deal yet until the fat lady sings

[2hoggy] 16/11/2017 22:17

What hipocrisy from a country who has made all this money from oil,but what does one expect from the bankers..

And a country that gets all its energy from hydro power.

[waldron] 16/11/2017 16:35

Norway Considers Pulling Its $1 Trillion Wealth Fund Out of Oil Stocks -- 2nd Update
16/11/2017 4:27pm
Dow Jones News

Shell A (LSE:RDSA)
Intraday Stock Chart

Today : Thursday 16 November 2017
Click Here for more Shell A Charts.

By Dominic Chopping

Norway's sovereign-wealth fund said on Thursday it may stop buying oil and gas stocks, a move that would deprive the energy sector of investment from a $1 trillion asset manager.

The Norwegian central bank, which uses the fund to invest the proceeds of the country's oil industry, said that investing money back into the energy sector amplifies the government's exposure to the price of crude, particularly given the country's majority stake in Statoil ASA.

Oil and gas equities currently account for around 6% of the Government Pension Fund Global's benchmark index, or just more than 300 billion Norwegian kroner ($36.49 billion).

The Stoxx Europe 600 Oil & Gas index drifted lower on the news of the potential divestment, before recovering. Shares in Statoil fell by as much as 1%. The fund also owns large stakes in most of the world's oil majors, including a 0.92% stake in Chevron Corp., a 0.82% stake in Exxon Mobil Corp., 1.65% in BP PLC and 2.23% in Royal Dutch Shell PLC as of the end of 2016.

"An orderly divestment process over a period of time won't significantly impact share prices," said Jefferies analyst Jason Gammel.

Norges Bank, the central bank, made the proposal to Norway's Ministry of Finance on Thursday, saying that, given its size, the fund accounts for an increasingly large share of the nation's wealth and is an integral part of government fiscal policy. That means that the vulnerability of government wealth to a permanent drop in oil and gas prices would be reduced if the fund pulled out of the stocks in that sector, Norges Bank said.

The Ministry of Finance said the government aims to make a decision in the fall of 2018.

Two years of weaker oil prices has cut into the income of many of the world's largest sovereign-wealth funds, which are in largely resource-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

A bank official said that the advice doesn't reflect a view on future oil and gas prices.

Norway's fund was established to harness the country's oil and gas income while also giving the government room for maneuver in fiscal policy should oil prices drop, the mainland economy contract and as its oil eventually runs out.

In September, the fund value reached $1 trillion for the first time after being boosted as the world's major currencies strengthened against the U.S. dollar, combined with strong equity markets.

Stock markets have set record after record in 2017, powered in large part by a revival in U.S. corporate earnings.

While the fund's latest proposal was based on concern about overexposure to oil, the fund has been steadily pulling out of mining companies and power producers that derive large portions of income from thermal coal.

Other large investors have launched products that don't invest in fossil fuels.

In April, Storebrand, Norway's largest private-pension fund, said it had launched two new fossil-free funds. Several U.K. pension schemes have funds which don't invest in the sector. In 2014, Stanford University said it wouldn't invest in coal-mining companies, and amid pressure from environmental activists other U.S. endowment funds have debated whether they should pull out of fossil fuel investments.

On Thursday, Storebrand said in a release that Norge Bank's move should encourage other funds to pressure "oil and gas companies to revisit their investment plans and operations in the transition to a low carbon economy. "

Mr. Gammel, though, said he didn't expect to see a flight of money from the sector.

Sarah Kent contributed to this article.

Write to Dominic Chopping at [e-mail]



(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 16, 2017 11:12 ET (16:12 GMT)

[waldron] 16/11/2017 15:30

I WONDER WHICH SECTORS AND STOCK MARKETS WILL BENEFIT FROM THE SOVEREIGN FUND CHANGE
OF INVESTMENTS


GUESSES ON A POST CARD PLEASE

TO BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN CHRISTMAS EVE

[waldron] 16/11/2017 15:08

SO NOW TESTING THE SUPPORT AT BOTTOM OF 2375 to 2474 BOX

[ariane] 16/11/2017 15:03

CHEERS ZHO

[waldron] 16/11/2017 07:43

Shares buy backs at oil giant follow cost cutting drive which has taken toll on jobs in Aberdeen
BP to return billions more to investors after surge in profits

BP to return billions more to investors after surge in profits
0 comments

BP has launched a programme to return around $1.6 billion (£1.2bn) more cash to shareholders a year, after slashing costs in response to the crude price plunge and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, writes Mark Williamson.

The oil and gas giant has become the first major to restart share buy backs since 2014, when the industry entered a deep downturn after the oil price fell sharply.

BP has shed around 900 jobs in the North Sea and sold off a range of what it deemed non-core assets in the area since 2014.

The company said last month it was planning to resume buy backs after third quarter profits doubled to $1.9bn. Chief executive Bob Dudley thinks BP has been put in shape to prosper if oil sells at $50 per barrel, compared with around $61.90/bbl yesterday.

BP noted its authority to buy back shares took effect yesterday. It will remain in place until the 2018 annual general meeting. The company will decide when to buy shares according to market conditions.

The buy backs will be used to offset the effect of paying around 20 per cent of its dividends in shares.

BP shares closed down 8p at 495p. They hit a two year high of 525p last week.

The cost of the 2010 spill off the US rose $0.2bn to $63.4bn in the third quarter.

[waldron] 15/11/2017 23:05

ALMOST DIVI TIME

OH YOU LUCKY PEOPLE

[ariane] 15/11/2017 22:52

IEA's Shocking Revelation About U.S. Shale
November 15, 2017, 08:38:39 AM EDT By Oilprice.com

Shutterstock photo

The oil market is exhibiting signs of having reached a “new normal,” according to the IEA, with the floor for oil prices jumping from $50 to $60 per barrel. But a few factors could poke holes in that price floor, and market watchers should be careful not to become overly optimistic about the trajectory for oil prices, the agency says.

In its latest Oil Market Report, the Paris-based energy agency says that a confluence of events have pushed up Brent prices. Lower-than-expected oil production figures coming out of Mexico, the U.S. and the North Sea have combined with unexpected outages in Iraq (-170,000 bpd in October), Algeria, Nigeria and Venezuela. Those outages, plus the geopolitical turmoil in Iraq, and especially Saudi Arabia, have heightened tension in the oil market.

Inventories also continue to decline. OECD commercial stocks fell below the symbolic 3-billion-barrel mark in September for the first time in two years.

That seems to have put a floor beneath Brent crude prices at $60 per barrel, creating a “new normal” after prices had bounced around in the $50s for months. But the IEA cautions that the floor is not a solid one, and that a “fresh look at the fundamentals confirms…that the market balance in 2018 does not look as tight as some would like.”

For one, some of those outages are temporary. North Sea and Mexican production recovered from maintenance, Iraq is scrambling to restore output (and raised exports from its southern fields to compensate for outages in the north), and shut-ins related to Hurricane Harvey in the U.S. have largely been restored. Libya and Nigeria saw their output inch up in October.

But the real news is that the IEA downgraded its demand forecast for both this year and next. The agency lowered its 2017 forecast by 50,000 bpd, which may not seem like much, but is the result of a more recent slowdown – the agency says that demand in the fourth quarter will likely end up being 311,000 bpd lower than it previously thought. There are a variety of reasons for this, including fewer heating degree day numbers for the winter, lower demand in the Middle East (Iraq and Egypt), and some “modest changes elsewhere.”

On top of that, oil prices have jumped 20 percent over the past two months, putting a dent in demand. The IEA assumes a price elasticity of oil demand at -0.04, which means that every 10 percent increase in prices implies a 400,000-bpd decline in oil demand (given that total demand is at nearly 100 mb/d).

Overall, the IEA revised down its 2018 oil demand forecast by 190,000 bpd.

The deceleration in demand will leave the market with a surplus in the fourth quarter, and that slowdown will continue into 2018. Global supply will exceed demand by a rather substantial 0.6 mb/d in the first quarter of next year, and the surplus will linger in the second quarter, narrowing to 0.2 mb/d.

That comes after a lot of progress was made this year in lowering inventories. The supply surplus suggests that inventories will resume their climb for the next few months, perhaps through mid-2018.

The sudden pessimistic outlook for the oil market is a symptom of explosive growth from U.S. shale, which, combined with other non-OPEC producers, will result in an additional 1.4 mb/d in fresh supply in 2018. That is a staggering number, and so large that “next year’s demand growth will struggle to match this,” the IEA said. The agency warned that “absent any geopolitical premium, we may not have seen a ‘new normal’ for oil prices.”

In a separate report – the IEA’s annual World Energy Outlook – the agency dismissed predictions about peak oil demand, arguing that any increase in EVs will be more than offset in robust demand growth from other sectors, including trucks, aviation, maritime transport and petrochemicals.

Moreover, the U.S. will apparently be the one that meets that growth in demand. The IEA said that the U.S. shale revolution will mean that combined oil and natural gas will have to rise to “a level 50% higher than any other country has ever managed.” The IEA says that the 8 mb/d increase in tight oil production between 2010 and 2025 “would match the highest sustained period of oil output growth by a single country in the history of the oil markets.”

In other words, the shale revolution still has a long way to go, and when all is said and done, the U.S. will have added more supply in a shorter period of time than even Saudi Arabia did at its peak.

Taken together, the two reports from the IEA may have just burst the oil price bubble – prices plunged on Tuesday, erasing a large chunk of the gains seen in recent weeks.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

[fjgooner] 15/11/2017 22:49

@Waldron on post 1487



===================

Many thanks for that Waldron.

It was great to see on a current video one of my literary heroes, Daniel Yergin. He's gifted us a global, historical context on the energy sector for over a quarter of a century, so I'd suggest taking his opinions as pure gold.

The Venezuela scenario that Dan describes is very real. And it could indeed spike oil prices sharply upwards at any time over the next year or so. However, I'd imagine that supply could be corrected by OPEC unwinding their constraints - but that would take many weeks to resolve a supply-side crisis.

But more importantly, the people of that country need a lot of help and none seems forthcoming. They have been queuing (and sadly fighting in some cases) for food for some considerable time now. I've never understood why our media chooses to champion suffering in some parts of the world whilst completely ignoring others.

As for our own interests - Q4 continues to look rather bright. Brent Q4 average continues to move up by approximately 10 cents per day whilst the prevailing Brent price stays around the $62 mark.

The sector Brent Q4 average now stands at $59.32. Every single day that passes between now and December 29th with a price above $60 puts stocks such as Shell in superb shape for full year announcement date on February 1st.

Ex-dividend date for Q3 is tomorrow for Shell - for those who don't enjoy the roller coaster down that always seems to overshoot the actual pay-out, you have an exit point tomorrow. However, with the Q4 data building so obviously, this dividend story may be a bit different and an exit/return strategy looks more perilous than normal.

For those of us who love our healthy dividends and care less about volatile capital gains, it's just another day of rejoicing in our investment choice in this stock.

FJ :)

[waldron] 15/11/2017 13:30

IF it stays around 2438 then it should open tomorrow at 2400 if lucky