Oil giant Shell announces on Wednesday that it is now counting on “stable” oil production until 2030, despite having unveiled in 2021 reduction targets of 1 to 2% per year, arousing the ire of defenders of the environment.
The group is also boosting distributions to shareholders after a year of record profits in the wake of the war in Ukraine, which sent oil prices soaring last year.
In a statement released ahead of an investor day, Shell said it will “stabilize its liquids production through 2030”.
“We are investing to provide the energy security that customers need today”, justifies the general manager Wael Sawan, quoted in the press release.
The group maintains that it has already achieved its production reduction objectives over the period.
A Shell spokesperson contacted by AFP points out that the black gold production reduction targets which had been posted in 2021, and based on 2019 production, were achieved in 2022 thanks to disposals such as the sale of shale oil deposits in the United States.
Shell is also counting on the natural decline of certain mature deposits, more than on an effective reduction in the oil drilled.
“Our objective of a reduction in oil production in 2030 has not changed”, assures the spokesperson.
Profits rather than planet
The press release on Wednesday details a series of gifts to shareholders, with a 15% increase in the dividend per effective share on 2e quarter of 2023, and share buybacks of at least $5 billion in the second half of this year.
The NGO Global Witness castigates this “180 degree turn” initiated “on the back of the energy crisis instead of accelerating green investments”.
“It will always be profits first rather than people or planet, for polluters,” tackles Global Witness.
“Like other fossil fuel giants who have also scaled back their ambitions, Shell now admits it has no plans to change its business model, inconsistent with efforts around the world to avoid the worst. climate collapse”, comments for its part the environmental association Friends of the Earth.
The other British oil “major”, BP, also announced in February, on the sidelines of record results, that it intended to boost its profits by 2030 by investing more both in renewable energies, but also in hydrocarbons. , slowing the pace of its energy transition.
Simon Evans, of the Carbon Brief site, believes for his part, questioned by AFP, that it is “very clear that we are not on the right track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees” as in under the Paris agreements.
To achieve this objective “we must reduce emissions” of CO2 “faster and transition faster to cleaner energy,” he adds.
He also notes that European oil companies remain “ahead of the others”, and in particular their American rivals, in terms of investment in green energies.
Investors welcomed Shell’s announcements. The action took 0.59% to 2309.50 pence on the stock market around 10:30 GMT.
The Berenberg bank considers that the strategy unveiled on Wednesday is “positive”, in particular the reduction of costs envisaged and that of investments, planned at between 22 and 25 billion dollars per year in 2024 and 2025, including 10 to 15 billion from 2023 to 2025 in low-carbon energies.
Derren Nathan, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the “long-term focus on shareholder payouts will restrict the amount of capital available to invest in new technologies and this could make exiting oil and gas more difficult”.
The title of Shell had unscrewed during the pandemic when economic activity was almost paralyzed by the confinements, and is now approaching its peaks of 2018.
Shell posted a first-quarter profit up 22% year-on-year to $8.7 billion.
In 2022, the group’s annual profits were the highest in its history, at $42.3 billion, thanks in particular to the rise in hydrocarbon prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which disrupted energy supplies. from Europe.