Shell profit beats forecasts with 12% jump

Royal Dutch Shell beat analysts' forecasts and reported a 12 per cent jump in first quarter profit today as oil prices more than…

Royal Dutch Shell beat analysts' forecasts and reported a 12 per cent jump in first quarter profit today as oil prices more than compensated for falling production.

Shell said current cost of supply net income, which strips out changes in the value of inventories, was $6.088 billion.

Excluding a non-operating gain of $113 million, the result was $5.975 billion, ahead of an average forecast of $5.56 billion in a Reuters poll of seven analysts.

Anglo-Dutch Shell, the third-biggest western oil firm by market capitalisation, said oil and gas production fell 3 per cent to $3.746 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the first quarter, ahead of the poll forecast of 3.6 million boepd.

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Shell said it was losing 165,000 boepd due to attacks on its Nigerian operations - although these are not the most profitable barrels in its portfolio.

Shell's upstream oil and gas production unit propelled the overall profit increase, thanks to higher oil prices, but earnings fell sharply at the company's refining and marketing unit.

The fall in refining earnings partly reflect a big one-off gain last year due to asset sales, but margins and throughput also fell.

Shell boosted its dividend 9 per cent to 25 cent per share.