Royal Dutch Shell Plc (LON: RDSA) have seen their shares dip on Friday afternoon despite giving shareholders an interesting update.
Shell have seen a mixed few weeks of trading, and shares have been volatile over the past few months. At the end of October, Shell received a Halloween scare when they revealed that their profits took a bruising.
Shell saw their profits slump but they comfortably beat market and analyst expectations posting earnings of $4.8 billion (£3.7 billion), well ahead of the $3.91 billion anticipated.
This is the second time that this has happened during 2019 trading after second quarter results saw profits slow but the still beating consensus.
In this update, Shell joined fellow oil titans such as SABIC who reported an impairment loss of $400 million, and Total SA to report slower profits as profits fell 15% in the third quarter update.
A week after, the FTSE100 listed firm, announced that they would be merging with French firm EOLFI as part of its plans to expand into the oil major’s electricity business.
“We believe the union of EOLFI’s expertise and portfolio with Shell’s resources and ability to scale up will help make electricity a significant business for Shell,” Offshore Wind Shell vice president Dorine Bosman said in a statement
In an update on Friday, the firm updated shareholders about a $10 billion new credit facility. The new facility has been agreed with a total of 25 banks and replaces the existing framework valued at $8.84 billion.
It will also, in a first, have interest and fees linked to Shell’s progress in reached its short-term net carbon footprint target. Shell has targeted reduce its footprint by 2% to 3% by 2021.
“We are delighted to support the transition to new benchmark interest rates with this, market leading, syndicated SOFR facility,” said Russell O’Brien, Group Treasurer at Shell. “This is an innovative deal which also demonstrates Shell’s broad-based commitment to reducing the Net Carbon Footprint of the energy products we sell. We appreciate the strong support and commitment from our relationship banks.”
Shell has set an ambition to reduce the Net Carbon Footprint of the energy products by around 50% by 2050 and by 20% by 2035 in a time of high environmental awareness.
The move to promote environmentalism comes at an important time where multinationals such as Coca Cola HBC AG have added to the growing list of firms who have looked to reduce their carbon footprint.
The update concluded by saying “The $10 billion unsecured revolving credit facility consists of a five-year, $8 billion revolving credit facility, and a one-year, $2 billion facility. Each facility includes two one-year extension options at the discretion of each lender”.
“Bank of America and Barclays Bank acted as joint coordinators for the facility”.
Shares of Shell dipped 0.82% on the announcement and trade at 2,164p. 13/12/19 14:52BST.
