MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc is lining up assets for a USD30 billion divestment program that may extend from the U.S. and Trinidad to India following its record takeover of BG Group Plc, reported Bloomberg with reference to people with knowledge of the matter.
Assets linked to Shell’s interests in Trinidad & Tobago and stakes in oil and gas fields in India may be on the block, two of the people said, asking not to be identified because the plans are confidential. Pipelines in the U.S. are also high on the list, they said, adding that disposal plans aren’t final and will depend on demand.
Raising money through divestments is crucial for Shell after the BG purchase wiped out more than USD10 billion of its cash, prompting a credit-rating cut from Fitch Ratings Ltd. as debt-to-equity levels rose. Oil’s collapse over the past 20 months has eroded balance sheets across the industry and the outlook for a sustained market rout may hinder Shell’s efforts to find buyers for the assets.
Jonathan French, a spokesman for Shell, declined to comment.
As MRC informed earlier, Shell saw full-year earnings tumble to 3.8 billion US dollars (GBP2.6 billion) in 2015 from 19 billion US dollars (GBP13 billion) in 2014, when it reported its annual results at the beginning of February.
Royal Dutch Shell, commonly known as Shell, is an Anglo–Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and incorporated in the United Kingdom.Created by the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum and UK-based Shell Transport & Trading, it is the fourth largest company in the world as of 2014, in terms of revenue, and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors".
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