Shell is to sell off more than £18billion worth of assets over the next two years following a huge dip in profits.
The oil giant – which has more than 6,500 employees in the UK – is reportedly looking to divest amid continuing security problems in Nigeria.
But the firm is refusing to speculate on whether any of its North Sea platforms will be sold.
The news comes just days after another major energy company – Marathon Oil – announced plans to quit the UK Continental Shelf.
According to Fred Lucas, of analysts JP Morgan Cazenove, Shell’s guidance for capital spending implies at least £9billion in asset sales during the next two years.
“Yet without too much thought to portfolio stress, we can isolate almost double that figure of potentially non-core assets in Shell’s global portfolio,” he said.
The £18billion disposal plan could be unveiled as early as next month and would be the largest in the firm’s history.
Shell has been a leading player in the North Sea for more than 30 years, and still produces more than 12% of UK oil and gas.
Glen Cayley, Shell UK’s upstream director, insists the region remains its engine room for global growth.
It has interests in more than 50 fields, operating more than 30 offshore installations, 30 subsea installations, two FPSOs (Floating Production Storage and Offtake vessel), three onshore gas plants and a marine terminal.
The firm shocked the North Sea in 2009 when it – along with Exxon Mobil – decided to offload six fields.
However, the deal brought Taqa to the North Sea, and the firm has since gone on to be one of the region’s top employers.
Shell declined to comment on the selloff yesterday, but in October the firm said that its investment would peak in 2013 and that it would “step up” asset sales in 2014 and 15.
“For 2013 we have announced around $10billion (£6.1billion) of acquisitions,” said finance director Simon Henry.
“That includes Repsol pre-emption rights on BC-10 in Brazil, the signature bonus for Libra also in Brazil and building out some of our North Sea upstream positions so we expect now our net investment spending will be around $45billion (£27.5billion) in 2013.
“This is an increase from the net $40billion (£24.5billion) guidance that we gave at the second quarter but that is driven by the new acquisitions in Brazil and we do now expect lower divestment proceeds than we had previously expected, somewhere between $1billion (£610million) and $2billion (£1.2billion) for the year.”
“We are managing through a four-year programme $130billion (£79.5billion) of net investment spending. That’s from 2012 to 2015 combined and that’s in the $100 oil price scenario.
“There are several moving parts in that; asset sales, the acquisitions, new investment decisions. These are all being managed on a multi-year basis.
“2013 will obviously be a peak year for net investment. The net investment will be mostly likely considerably lower in 2014 because we need to work through some $10billion (£6.1billion) of acquisitions and this year, of course, lower asset sales but we will step up, as noted before, asset sales in 2014 and 2015.”
More details on what Shell pans to sell off are expected to be disclosed at the end of January.
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