LONDON: Earnings from Shell’s (SHEL.L) liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading operations are likely to have been significantly higher in the fourth quarter of last year despite a sharp output drop owing to plant outages, it said on Friday.
Europe s largest oil and gas company s update ahead of its full-year results on Feb. 2 also said it expects to pay about $2 billion in additional 2022 taxes related to the European Union and British windfall taxes imposed on the energy sector.
Fourth-quarter LNG liquefaction volumes are expected to be the lowest since the company acquired BG Group in 2016 for $53 billion, dropping to between 6.6 million and 7 million tonnes as a result of prolonged outages at two major plants in Australia.
But Shell, the world s top LNG trader, said its LNG trading results are set to be “significantly higher” than in the previous quarter.
Shell shares rose nearly 1% as the market opened.
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Shell s third-quarter results were dented by weaker refining performance and a slump in LNG trading.
The LNG trading division recorded a loss of nearly $1 billion in the third quarter after traders were caught out by a sharp rally in European gas prices when Russia halted supplies.
Yet Shell remained on track for record annual profit in 2022, having posted earnings of $30 billion in the first three quarters, just shy of the 2008 record profit of $31 billion.
