Shell: to take big impairment hit in second quarter

(CercleFinance.com) - Shell said on Tuesday that it would book impairment charges of up to 22 billion dollars after revising its outlook for the price of oil and margins, reflecting the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent collapse in energy market demand.


The oil giant said that the aggregate post-tax, non-cash impairment charges would be between 15 billion dollars to 22 billion dollars in the second quarter.

In its integrated gas unit, it has said that impairment charges will be between 8 billion dollars and 9 billion dollars, primarily due to Australia including partial impairment of its QGC and Prelude businesses.

Meanwhile, charges in its upstream division are expected to be between 4 billion dollars and 6 billion dollars, largely due to Brazil and its North America shale business.

Finally, impairment charges for the oil products unit should be somewhere between 3 billion dollars and 7 billion dollars, across the refining portfolio.

The Anglo-Dutch company said that these impairments are expected to have a pre-tax impact of between 20 billion dollars and 27 billion dollars.

Shell's A shares were down 1.4% after this announcement, underperforming the broader oil and gas index, which was down 0.8%.

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