Third quarter 2014 results CFO video comment
Hello, I am Simon Henry, the CFO of Royal Dutch Shell.
Today I’d like to give you an overview of our third quarter results and portfolio development.
Firstly on the results.
Third quarter earnings on a current cost of supplies basis, CCs basis excluding identified items,
were $5.8 billion, that is a 30% increase in CCS earnings per share versus the same quarter last year.
Earnings were supported by better Downstream margins and operating performance, by new higher-margin Upstream production, lower exploration expenses and higher Integrated Gas results.
Our overall upstream production volumes are lower, but margins are higher, as our strategy of investing in profitable projects with or without equity production pays off.
Our new projects are delivering benefits to the bottom line now.
We are having a strong year in portfolio development.
First oil at Gumusut-Kakap in Malaysia completes the list of four, Shell-operated deep water
start-ups that we’d planned for 2014.
We’ve also taken final investment decision on new deep-water fields.
And we have moved the potential 100,000 boe per day Vito field in the Gulf of Mexico intofront end engineering and design, or FEED part of a project flow for the end of the decade and beyond.
We aim to grow cash flow through the business cycle and deliver competitive shareholder returns.
The priorities we set out at the start of this year have not changed.
We are taking firm actions to improve our capital efficiency by selling selected assets $12 billion of sales so far this year and the conservative balance sheet underpins the financial framework.
Dividends are our main route for returning cash to shareholders.
We have declared $11.3 billion of dividends and share buy backs in the first 9 months of 2014,
and we are expecting dividend distributions and buy-backs of over $30 billion for 2014 and 2015 combined.
This underlines our commitment to shareholder returns.
Thank you.