SHEL Shell Plc

By Christian Moess Laursen and Joe Hoppe

Shell said it expects its third-quarter earnings to be boosted by stronger gas and chemical trading, while its production volumes are on track to meet targets.

The British energy giant said Friday that it expects to report production of 880,000-920,000 oil-equivalent barrels a day of integrated gas for the third quarter, which would be in line with its guided range of 870,000-930,000 BOE a day, but down from 924,000 BOE a day in the same quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, third-quarter volumes of liquefied natural gas--LNG--are expected to have fallen to 6.6 million-7.0 million metric tons from 7.24 million tons a year earlier. This still tightens guidance upward from Shell's previous expectations of 6.3 million-6.9 million tons.

On the corporate side, the company expects to post an adjusted loss of around $400 million to $600 million. This compares with a corporate adjusted loss of $654 million in the second quarter.

Shell said integrated gas production and the LNG liquefaction outlook reflect scheduled maintenance, including Prelude and Trinidad and Tobago assets.

The oil-and-gas major said both integrated gas trading and chemicals and products trading are expected to be higher on-quarter.

The expected uptick in trading comes after a recent rally in oil, refined products and gas prices across the sector, which is widely expected to provide a boost to the quarterly earnings of integrated energy players.

Shell's overall marketing results from trading oil and other products is expected to be broadly flat on-year in the third quarter, as sales volumes guidance is slightly tightened down to 2.45 million-2.85 million BOE a day, from prior guidance of 2.45 million-2.95 million BOE a day.

Upstream production is now expected to meet the upper levels of the previously guided range of 1.6 million-1.8 million BOE a day, now forecast at 1.7 million-1.8 million BOE a day, and compared with 1.79 million BOE a day in the same period last year.

Shell's third-quarter results are scheduled to be published on Nov. 2.

Write to Christian Moess Laursen at christian.moess@wsj.com and Joe Hoppe at joseph.hoppe@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 06, 2023 03:08 ET (07:08 GMT)

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