Shell doubles profits
Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, has said its profits have doubled to nearly $7bn in the third quarter because of higher oil prices and gains from the sale of assets.
Shell said net profit was $6.98bn, up from $3.46bn in the third quarter of 2010. Revenues rose 36% to $123bn.
Shell booked $1.8bn in profits from the sale of assets, notably the sale of a refinery in Britain.
This time a year ago it took a $1.4bn impairment charge on assets after an accounting review of its operations in Canadian heavy oil sands and its refining arm.
Production fell 1.6% to 3.01 million barrels of oil per day, but Shell said that would have been a rise of 2%, comparing like-for-like.
