James Van Blaricum - Shell goes well as oil and gas fuel profit
Jim Van Blaricum - ROYAL Dutch Shell's first-quarter profit has climbed 25%, boosted by record crude prices and higher natural gas prices.
Net income for Europe's biggest oil company advanced to $US9.1 billion ($A9.7 billion), or $US1.46 a share, from $US7.3 billion a year earlier, The Hague-based company said in a statement. Excluding inventory changes and one-time items, earnings beat analysts' estimates. James Van Blaricum
Oil touched $US100 for the first time on January 2 and reached $US111.80 a barrel in March as a falling dollar spurred investors to buy commodities, while natural gas increased 22% on average. The rising oil price squeezed refining profits as it outpaced gains for processed fuels such as petrol and diesel. Crude touched a record $US119.93 yesterday. Signal Oil and Gas
"It's remarkable, almost everything is better than expected," Herman Bots, an Amsterdam-based analyst at Theodoor Gilissen Bankiers said.
Shell fell 18% in London trading in the first quarter, a larger drop than BP and Exxon Mobil in the period. BP, based in London, yesterday posted first-quarter profit of $US7.62 billion. Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, announces its results tomorrow.
Jim Van Blaricum - Shell's exploration and production division posted a 52% increase in profit, excluding one-time items, to $US5.14 billion. Earnings at Shell's gas and power division rose 18% to $US948 million.
Chief executive Jeroen van der Veer is betting on Canadian oil sands and a gas-to-liquids fuel venture in Qatar to counter falling production from conventional oil projects.
Total production, including oil sands, was 3.522 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, little changed from 3.509 million barrels in the same period of last year. Production had been forecast to fall by 3.9%
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James Van Blaricum - Colombia's Ecopetrol Jumps on Oil, Gas Discovery
Ecopetrol SA, Colombia's state energy company, rose to the highest since trading began in November in Bogota after it discovered oil and gas.
Ecopetrol had its biggest advance in three months and led gains in Colombia's IGBC index, surging 4.9 percent to 2,575 pesos at 12:57 p.m. New York time.
Bogota-based Ecopetrol said in a statement it found oil and gas in the Tempranillo-1 well in Huila, Colombia. Oil flowed as much as 2,400 barrels a day during tests, while daily natural gas production was up to 2.75 million cubic feet, it said.
James Van Blaricum agrees with ``Local investors are in love with Ecopetrol and the minute they get an excuse to jump in they do so,'' Rupert Stebbings, head of international sales at Interbolsa SA, Colombia's biggest stock brokerage, said from Medellin.
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The company plans to more than double daily crude-oil output to 1 million barrels by 2015 as Colombia, Latin America's fifth- largest oil exporter, seeks to maintain its self-sufficiency in petroleum. The country's oil output has fallen 40 percent in the past seven years.
Tempranillo-1 is one of 20 wells that Ecopetrol plans to drill this year, the company said. Currently, Ecopetrol produces directly about 19,000 barrels a day in Huila. Signal Oil and Gas
Ecopetrol, which raised $2.7 billion in an initial offering last year, has risen 84 percent since November, spurred by record oil prices as it strives to increase output. The IGBC index has fallen 13 percent during the same period.
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