THE HAGUE (dpa-AFX) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDS-B, RDSB.L, RDSA.L, RDS-A) reported that its Income before taxation for the fourth-quarter increased to $7.91 billion from $6.55 billion in the previous year. Shell launched the next tranche of the share buyback programme, with a maximum aggregate consideration of $2.5 billion in the period up to and including April 29, 2019.
Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said, 'We will continue with a strong delivery focus in 2019, with a disciplined approach to capital investment and growing both our cash flow and returns. Our strategy to deliver a world-class investment case is working.'
Income attributable to shareholders for the quarter grew to $5.59 billion or $0.67 per share from $3.81 billion or $0.46 per share last year.
CCS earnings attributable to shareholders,excluding identified items, grew to $5.69 billion from last year's $4.30 billion mainly benefited from higher realised oil, gas and LNG prices as well as stronger contributions from crude oil and LNG trading, partly offset by movements in deferred tax positions.
Quarterly total revenue and other income grew to $104.63 billion from $88.12 billion last year.
Royal Dutch Shell announced the commencement of trading in the third tranche of its share buyback programme previously announced on July 26, 2018. In the third tranche, the company has entered into an irrevocable, non-discretionary arrangement with a broker to enable the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares for a period up to and including April 29, 2019. The aggregate maximum consideration for the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares under the third tranche is $2.5 billion. The company's intention is to buy back at least $25 billion of its shares by the end of 2020, subject to further progress with debt reduction and oil price conditions.
Compared with the first quarter 2018, Integrated Gas production is expected to decrease by some 140 - 170 thousand boe/d, mainly due to divestments, the transfer of some activities into the Upstream segment as of 2019 and higher maintenance activities. LNG liquefaction volumes are expected to be 0.4 - 0.7 million tonnes lower, mainly as a result of divestments and higher maintenance activities.
For the first quarter 2019, the company expects Upstream production to be 10 - 50 thousand boe/d lower, mainly due to divestments and field decline, partly offset by ramp-ups of existing fields.
Oil Products sales volumes are expected to be 40 - 70 thousand boe/d lower compared with the same period a year earlier, mainly as a result of the divestment in Argentina.
Chemicals manufacturing plant availability in the first quarter 2019 is expected to be at a similar level as in the first quarter 2018.
Corporate earnings excluding identified items are expected to be a net charge of $400 million - $450 million in the first quarter 2019 and a net charge of $1.700 billion - $1.900 billion for the full year 2019. This excludes the impact of currency exchange rate effects and the impact of IFRS 16 Leases.
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