Shell 2022 profit more than doubles to record USD40 bln

Shell delivered a record USD40 billion profit in 2022, capping a tumultuous year in which a surge in energy prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine allowed it to hand shareholders unprecedented returns, said the company.

Shell reported adjusted earnings of USD39.9 billion for the full-year 2022. This comfortably surpasses the USD28.4 billion in 2008 which Shell said was the firm’s previous annual record and is more than double the firm’s full-year 2021 profit of USD19.29 billion.

Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected full-year 2022 net profit to come in at USD38.3 billion. For the final quarter of 2022, Shell reported adjusted earnings of USD9.8 billion.

Shell announced a $4 billion share buyback program, which is expected to be completed by its first-quarter 2023 results — due out by early May — and a 15% dividend per share increase for the fourth quarter. “It is a huge year for Shell and a huge year to look back on as well,” Shell CEO Wael Sawan told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick in his first earnings interview since taking on the role on Jan. 1.

“I feel privileged to be stepping into this role at such a great point in the company’s history. As we look ahead, I think we have a unique opportunity to be able to succeed as the winner in the energy transition. We have a portfolio that I think is second to none,” Sawan said. “My focus will be very much around performance and capital discipline,” he added.

The results follow in the footsteps of historic annual earnings for U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron, with the West’s largest oil and gas companies expected to rake in combined profits of nearly USD200 billion for the year, according to Refinitiv data.

We remind, Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC announced it has commenced operations of its Pennsylvania Chemical project, Shell Polymers Monaca (SPM). The Pennsylvania facility is the first major polyethylene manufacturing complex in the Northeastern United States and has a designed output of 1.6 MMt annually.

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Venezuela's PDVSA has allocated an oil cargo to a unit of Eni for a February loading, the first to the Italian firm following a contract suspension this year by new management at the state-run company, people familiar with the matter said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Eni and Spanish oil firm Repsol in May last year received authorizations from the U.S. State Department to take the crude to Europe for outstanding Venezuela debt and dividends, an exception to U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela.

The cargo allocations, which worked intermittently last year, had not happened this year amid a large audit instructed by PDVSA's new boss Pedro Tellechea to avoid failed payments by some customers. Eni received two cargoes of Venezuelan diluted crude in June-July and two more shipments in November. The crude was exported in Eni-chartered vessels and delivered partially to Repsol oil refineries in Spain, according to PDVSA's documents and vessel monitoring services.

The latest cargo assigned to Eni is scheduled to load through ship-to-ship transfers at Venezuela's Amuay STS area. PDVSA recently has struggled to receive larger tankers at its West coast ports due to infrastructure issues, the people said. Eni declined to comment on individual transactions but said it is operating "in compliance with the applicable sanction regimes."

Repsol and PDVSA did not reply to requests for comment. U.S. oil major Chevron, which also was authorized by Washington last year to receive Venezuelan oil cargoes for debt, in January exported 2.3 million barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude to the United States.

One cargo has been exported so far in February by Chevron to its Pascagoula, Mississippi, refinery and another is about to depart Venezuela, monitoring data showed.

We remind, PDVSA on Friday restarted the fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) of its 645,000 bpd Amuay refinery, the country's largest, following an outage that halted operations for eight weeks, three sources from the facility said.
Outages and unplanned maintenance often interrupt operations at PDVSA's aging 1.3-MM-bpd refining network, leading to fuel scarcity, especially of gasoline and diesel.

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Neste and Scania are piloting a digital solution that enables easy follow-up and verification of each truck's usage of renewable fuels, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Combining data from Scania Fleet Management Portal enriched with Neste's fuel emission data, the solution provides Scania’s fleet management customers with accurate, up-to-date data for their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reporting and sustainability communications. Customers can compare the climate impact of their use of Neste’s renewable fuels to fossil fuels and track their continuous progress towards climate targets.

Neste and Scania are testing the digital solution with the logistic companies HAVI and UFF. The solution combines data regarding where a certain truck has been refueled and how much it has driven, with data about the climate impact because of the use of Neste MY Renewable Diesel™ instead of fossil fuel. Until now, it has been a challenge to verify to what extent trucks really run on renewable fuels, as the very same trucks could also continue to run on fossil fuels. The digital solution now being tested hopes to solve this issue. Neste’s and Scania’s joint ambition is that the solution could in the future serve all fleet manufacturers and all types of renewable fuels.

We remind, Neste posted strong revenue and profit growth in its renewable fuels business even as its Chief Executive flagged the long-term need for new raw materials amid growing European demand for sustainable jet fuel.
The company has bet heavily on renewable fuels but is competing in a crowded space as fossil fuel majors enter the green fuel market, pushing up costs for used cooking oil and discarded animal fat. Neste estimates that the maximum available global capacity for waste and residue materials would be around 40 MMtpy.

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Nexus Circular has signed a long-term commercial agreement with Chevron Phillips Chemical (CPChem) for the supply of a significant volume annually of circular liquid feedstocks from a new advanced recycling facility, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This long-term contractual commitment further strengthens CPChem’s relationship with Nexus for advanced recycled plastic feedstocks to produce Marlex Anew Circular Polyethylene.

Nexus has been supplying CPChem for over two years with consistent bulk shipments of ISCC PLUS certified materials. In December 2021, Six Pines Investments LLC, a wholly-owned sustainable investment subsidiary of CPChem, made a meaningful investment in Nexus to expand production at the Atlanta, Georgia, facility. Both companies are continuing discussions for future new expansion commitments.

Nexus Circular is a commercial leader in advanced recycling with a proven proprietary technology and a leading process design that converts landfill-bound films and other hard-to-recycle plastics into high-quality liquids which are then used to produce virgin-quality circular plastics. Since 2018, Nexus has been consistently supplying commercial volumes of circular liquid products, having diverted over 8-MM pounds of used plastics from landfill.

CPChem is targeting an annual production volume of 1-B pounds of Marlex Anew Circular Polyethylene by 2030. The proven, fully commercialized advanced recycling technology from Nexus repeatedly transforms difficult-to-recycle plastics into pristine new products to accelerate the transition to a circular economy for plastics.

Justine Smith, senior vice president of Petrochemicals at CPChem, said, “This contract with Nexus supports the transformation of used plastic into a new, useful resource, helping position CPChem to further scale our circular polymers program and deliver products the world needs for years to come.”

Clint Thompson, chief commercial officer at Nexus, said, “Nexus is delivering real-world scalable solutions to meet the outsized demands for virgin-quality recycled plastics. We are thrilled to collaborate with CPChem as we rapidly expand our innovation footprint.”

We remind, Chevron Corp. posted a record USD36.5 bn profit for 2022 that was more than double year-earlier earnings but fell shy of Wall Street estimates, undercut by an asset writedowns and a retreat in oil and gas prices.
The second largest U.S. oil producer's adjusted net profit for 2022 beat by about USD10 billion its previous record set in 2011. But USD1.1 B in writedowns in its international oil and gas operations in the fourth quarter left earnings short of forecasts for adjusted net profit of USD37.2 B.

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Aekyung Chemical plans to expand its surfactant plant in Vietnam, with the aim of targeting global markets in Southeast Asia, said Kedglobal.

The expansion of the plant, operated by the company's subsidiary AK VINA, will include the addition of high-value-added production lines for eco-friendly, low-stimulus, and natural surfactants.

The plant is expected to begin mass production in 2024, and the company aims to increase its overseas market share by increasing its production from 16,000 tons to 39,000 tons. The company cited growing demand from multinational companies operating in Vietnam for locally sourced surfactants.

"As the only synthetic surfactant production plant in Vietnam, we aim to establish a strong presence and respond to customer demands by offering high-value-added products," said Kim Joon-hyung, head of Aekyung Chemical's Living Chemical Business Division.

We remind, Aekyung Chemical, an affiliate of South Korea's Aekyung Group, has begun mass-producing eco-friendly plasticizers derived from recycled waste plastics, marking a first in South Korea. The company succeeded in developing the plasticizers and built specialized production facilities.

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