The share price of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) clicked into reverse after the Anglo-Dutch energy giant issued a profits warning ahead of publication of its full-year results on 30 January.
Shell cited “weak industry conditions in downstream oil products, higher exploration expenses and lower upstream volumes” through the fourth quarter of 2013. Matters weren’t helped by maintenance work over-runs, higher exploration costs and ongoing security issues in Nigeria. The group now anticipates profits (on a current cost of supplies basis) for the quarter to be about $2.2bn (£1.3bn) and profits for 2013 as a whole to be $16.8bn. Though not wholly unexpected, this is hardly the type of group performance that Ben van Beurden would have been hoping for in his maiden full-year results as Shell’s chief executive.