The deadly storm that hit Texas in February will cost Royal Dutch Shell up to $200 million in its first-quarter earnings, it said yesterday.
The freezing conditions killed more than 100 people, left millions without power and temporarily disabled large parts of oil and gas infrastructure.
The Anglo-Dutch group said that its oil and gas output for the quarter would be 2.4 million to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, including a hit of between 10,000 and 20,000 barrels a day caused by the storm.
It said that the storm would lead to a $40 million hit to earnings in its “upstream” oil and gas production division, an $80 million hit to refining and marketing and a $60 million hit to its chemicals division.
Shell issued the warning in a trading update ahead of its first-quarter results this month. Analysts at Citi said the update suggested that Shell would have made limited progress in debt reduction this quarter and would be some way off the level sought before increasing returns to shareholders.
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Separately, Shell said that for the third year in a row it had received net tax rebates from the UK government relating to the North Sea, this time of $99.1 million.
