MOSCOW (MRC) -- Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is evaluating whether to sell part of its assets in Argentina, the company said.
According to Executive President Ben van Beurden, refineries, transporting and distribution assets in the country could be put up for sale as part of a massive global disvestment programme worth an estimate USD30 billion. The move amounts to a massive revision of the firm’s "downstream” services, van Beurden said during a conference in New York.
Upstream operations — meaning the exploration and production of oil and gas — in the country will remain untouched, however, a spokesman for the firm clarified later. "Our upstream interests and their related assets in Argentina are outside the reach of our strategic revision," Shell said.
Shell has won the rights to explore some parts of the Vaca Muerta region in Neuquen province, known for its abundance of unconventional gas and oil resources, and could even increase its business there if the government’s policy of opening exploration to private firms continues.
In June, at the first presentation of its long-term business strategy since the US$54-billion purchase of the firm BG in February, Shell unveiled plans to limit expenses and close plants in some countries to focus on its more profitable operations, mainly natural gas, deep water drilling and chemicals.
As MRC informed earlier, Shell Australia has chosen Emerson to provide automation maintenance and reliability services for Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility. The size of six aircraft carriers, Prelude is the world’s largest floating production facility. It will process natural gas collected from subsea wells almost 300 miles offshore from Broome, Western Australia.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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