Shell posts strong profit rise

Royal Dutch Shell has posted a 31 per cent rise in profits during the second quarter of the year compared to last year as its upstream business sees bigger earnings.

Shell accounted that its second-quarter income attributable to shareholders climbed 31 per cent to $1.55 billion from last year's $1.18 billion.

Ben van Beurden, Shell chief executive officer said: “Shell’s strong results this quarter show that we are reshaping the company following the integration of BG."

Shell said that its integrated gas earnings in the second quarter was $1.2 billion, 35 per cent higher than in the second quarter of 2016. The oil major said this was because of higher LNG liquefaction volumes and lower costs.

The Anglo-Dutch major added that cash flow from operations was around $11.3 billion and over the past 12 months had generated $38 billion of cash from its operations, enough to cover its cash dividend and reduce debt.

Van Beurden added: "In the current macro-economic environment, we continue to pull on four levers to strengthen our financial framework divestments, capital investment, operating costs and the delivery of new projects."