Royal Dutch Shell reported lower-than-expected third-quarter adjusted earnings after taking a $400m hit from Hurricane Ida’s impact on operations.
The company on Thursday said earnings fell by 25% quarter on quarter to $4.13bn, below analyst forecasts of $5.31bn and compared with $955m a year ago.
Shell said the results were also hit by adverse one-off tax impacts, lower production volumes partly due to the impact of Hurricane Ida, and comparative lower contributions from trading and optimisation. This was partly offset by higher oil, LNG and gas prices.
Net debt was $57.5bn down from $65.7bn at the end of the second quarter 2021, mainly driven by free cash flow generation in the quarter and partly offset by dividends and share buybacks.
The company declared a 24 cent dividend and said it had completed $1bn of share buybacks were completed out of a total target of $2bn in the second half of 2021. Extra shareholder distributions of $7bn related to the Permian assets sale would start in 2022, post deal completion.
