Shell Shocked

20 April 2004

Another write-down in global oil reserves, another exec on the bricks. Shell said in January that it was downgrading 3.9 billion barrels in reserves, or about 20 percent of its total holdings. A March announcement raised the total downgraded to 4.15 billion barrels. The latest downgrade (19 April) raised the total to 4.85 billion barrels. Yes, that’s almost a billion more than the initial estimate.

Evidence of the internal conflict over reserves is emerging. Investors have had enough -- as they should.

Shell has a very strong heritage in technology and geoscience. Shell Research was the home of M. King Hubbert when he analyzed oilfield data to project the peaking of US oil production. (Which it did, basically on his projected schedule.) There is a subtle irony in some of Shell’s current problems stemming from its covering up the results of hitting the production peak in a major oil field. (My Shadow of Yibal post.)

I hope that the troubles at Shell do not impede the work being done by its Renewables and Hydrogen subsidiaries.