Earnings Labs

Shell plc (SHEL)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, May 4, 2016

$88.85

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Royal Dutch Shell 2016 Q1 Results Announcement. There will be a presentation followed by a Q&A session. I would now like to introduce your host, Mr. Simon Henry. Please go ahead, sir. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Many thanks. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's presentation. We announced our first quarter results this morning. These results included two months of contribution from BG following the completion of the acquisition on February 15. We've taken the opportunity to enhance our financial disclosure across the company today, and I hope you will find the new figures useful, although I do appreciate some of the modeling challenges it may now bring. Let me give you a summary, and then of course there'll be plenty of time for your questions. Before we start, just let me highlight the disclaimer. Shell's integrated activities from the wellhead through to the customer do differentiate us with our Downstream and Integrated Gas businesses delivering good results, underpinning our financial performance despite the continued low oil and gas prices at $34 average Brent for the quarter. We delivered $1.6 billion of underlying current cost of supply, or CCS, earnings this quarter, $9.3 billion of similar earnings over the last 12 months. We're already seeing positive effects from our acquisition of BG. BG delivered strong production growth in this quarter and some $200 million straight to the bottom line. We're off to a good start with the integration, building on six months of detailed planning before the deal was closed, at the same time continuing to reduce costs and spending overall across both portfolios with material opportunities to do exactly this in the down cycle. It's early days, but we're extremely pleased with what we have seen so far from the acquisition.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Oswald Clint from Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Oswald Clint - Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd.

Analyst · Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you very much. Yes, Simon, thanks. Two questions. First one, just on the Upstream business itself, you spoke about the reduction in the OpEx, which I can see, but obviously on a country basis we see here in the segmental that your loss making in every geographical business this quarter for the first time. So OpEx has fallen, your uptime is good, reliability is good. Is there more you can do here to get this, the Upstream, across these geographies back kind of into the black? Is that going to be sufficient for 2Q? Or maybe if you could just talk about further cost reduction across the geographies. And then second question, just on the CapEx kind of trending towards $30 billion. I think, I'm pretty sure investors are going to find that a little bit vague. So I'm wondering, does that mean you feel confident about $30 billion? Could it, will it be above that? Is there a chance it could fall below that? Just a bit more clarity around that CapEx number, please. Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Sure. Thanks, Oswald. The primary driver of the Upstream numbers is a $34 oil price, plus the fact that even where we're producing gas though, the linkage to the oil price with some lag in some cases. So that fundamentally is the difference. At today's price, $45 when I last looked, would be roughly $1 billion better off across the board, which moves some of the regions back into place. The fundamental reaction though, you're absolutely right, is costs. We've made clear to the organization some time ago, and we are seeing the bottom line results coming now. Thinking about costs, the combination of BG and the $40 world is a fantastic…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Lydia Rainforth from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Lydia R. Rainforth - Barclays Capital Securities Ltd.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks. Good afternoon, Simon. Two questions, if I could. The first one was, and I come back to focus on the OpEx side. If I look at the chart that you show, the move from 2015 to 2016 seems to imply about $8 billion reduction, which are clearly more than the $3 billion standalone guidance for Shell cost reductions and the $2 billion synergies. Is that the right way of looking at it, that you're actually doing more on the cost savings than you might have expected coming through? And that partly links to the second question of, are you able to give what you think is now the cash flow breakeven to cover CapEx and dividends in terms of an oil price either be it for this year or next year? Thanks. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: The reduction between 2015 and 2016 that we're seeing effectively, I'm using a ruler there, it's not necessarily $8 billion because we're trending towards a run rate of $40 billion. So we might end up with slightly more than $40 billion in the year because of one-off items in the first part of the year. But broadly speaking, it's $47 billion down to a run rate of $40 billion in the year. And yes, we are seeing more opportunity than we had originally expected. We previously stated $38 billion for Shell and add on a bit for BG, which is not necessarily all being accounted for on the same basis. But all told, all integrated, we should be at a run rate of $40 billion by the end of the year. And this is coming from a variety of places but one big help is synergies basically emerging much more quickly than we had originally sort of planned for or expected. And that's both on the exploration side, which we've been working at now for six to eight months, but also on the OpEx side where it's clear we can absorb in quite a lot of areas whether it's at the corporate budget level or in one or two countries. The activities with no added, no increase, net increase in staff or cost. And so that's been a big driver, plus I think momentum. We talked last year about lots of, not small, but for you as observers probably not that material, $100 million here, a few hundred million there, quite a few ongoing initiatives which are continuing. And they took cost out last year and taking more out this year. So it's aggregation of the contributions from many people. The 90,000 who are in Shell and not just something that Ben or I are exhorting people to do. Could be further room as we go forward as well. I expect obviously with the oil price being where it is, that's very much the direction we will take. Does that cover everything, Lydia? Okay. Yeah. Next question.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Christopher Kuplent - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah, hi. Thanks. Good afternoon. Simon, just two quick ones. I just wanted to check, I think you've now got almost $70 billion under your definition of financial net debt. The free cash flow obviously is still negative in Q1. I guess will remain negative this year. I just wanted to check how worried you are on the gearing side of things and whether that $70 billion number is causing alarm clocks, sorry, alarm bells as well to ring. And secondly, just wanted to get my hand around again the $40 billion OpEx, whether you could give us a bit more detail where that OpEx actually sits, what you include in there, how much you would define as structural costs that are not coming back should the oil price recover into the next three years. Or indeed, how much of those savings are purely pricing and cyclical. Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Okay. I'll try on the second one. The first one is the really important point, $69 billion of net debt, yes it is something that I might lose sleep about, but not just yet, 26.1% gearing. Free cash flow negative in the first quarter obviously driven by the BG deal and the working capital of $4 billion to $15 billion there that impacts the free cash flow. And the $34 oil price didn't help either. So going forward, in the short term at $45, with the current level of spend, the gearing and the net debt is likely to go up before it goes down. What brings even at $45, so what brings it down? It's the continued reduction in OpEx. It's the continued reduction in investment level, and importantly it's the coming onstream of new projects. And none of these…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jon Rigby from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jon Rigby - UBS Ltd.

Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you. Hello, Simon. Two questions. Could I just ask a question on the LNG? I think you said that this is about a $200 million contribution from BG, so can you confirm that or discuss a little more about what you're seeing in terms of sort of optimizing cargos? Are you able to see the kind of trading and optimization earnings that BG was able to generate? And is that starting to spread into the Shell business as well, the bigger Shell business? Maybe some color around that would be really useful. And secondly just on chemicals, obviously Moerdijk coming back, but I think you referenced Bukom down. Is it fair to say chemicals is under-earning against where you'd expect it to be all things equal? And maybe are you able to sort of calculate or indicate what you think the delta might be if everything was running rather more smoothly? Thanks. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Jon. Well, you're right on chemicals. It paid out versus $200 million, $300 million in Bukom. Moerdijk came back, but essentially the ethylene cracker in Bukom has been down. Should come back in the middle of the year plus or minus the end of Q2, but you are talking a few hundred million dollars, if you like, left on the table compared to everything running smoothly. LNG optimization, now still a bit early days. I don't want to say too much with some commercial sensitivity here, but I think we're seeing just as much flexibility in optimization in the Shell portfolio as there is in the BG portfolio. But it's a great opportunity to learn from both sides how to optimize not just in the short term but the medium and the long term. And in…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Biraj Borkhataria from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Biraj Borkhataria - RBC Europe Ltd.

Analyst · RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Hi, Simon. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple. The first one in looking out Upstream Americas or North America now as it's stated. CapEx was down quite sharply Q-on-Q by about $1 billion. I was wondering if you'd talk about the unconventionals business, specifically in kind of post the departure of management there and how that fits into your overall portfolio as well as how much capital that business will get for 2016 and going forward. And the second question was more of a clarification really. I noticed the Oceania gas realizations were particularly weak in the quarter versus the run rate, and I was wondering if you could give a bit more color on what's going on there. Thanks. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Sure. Thanks, Biraj. The unconventionals business in North America and Argentina together is getting about $2 billion of capital allocation this year. That's quite a lot down on previous years, and we're getting a lot more for it as it happens, because they keep coming in ahead of target. About 70% of the wells are coming in with a 1,000 barrel a day initial production or better. And we're seeing costs continue to be down sort of 20%, 30% like-for-like year-on-year. But the majority of the activity still remains exploration and appraisal. We've rarely if at all pulled the trigger on major developments for obvious reasons, $2 gas and $34 oil is not the time to be doing major development. So it's a bit of in a holding pattern. Strategically we're in a good place. We've got now in terms of resource potential, you're talking up to 12 billion barrels of oil equivalent resource potential across Canada, United States and Argentina. Around three quarters or 70% or…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Irene Himona from SG. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Irene Himona - Société Générale SA (Broker): Thank you. Hello, Simon. My first question is on volumes, if I may. You highlighted the contribution of BG to Q1 production and LNG. Are you able to provide some guidance on the new group's production in full-year 2016 and 2017 given all the moving parts of the puzzle? And then secondly, going back to the $40 billion, I mean effectively you're talking about faster near-term OpEx reductions as I understand it. How does that relate to the $3.5 billion synergies from BG by 2018? I mean is it the same number happening earlier? Are you able to raise that? And is there anything you can say at this stage on the question of value synergies or over and above that number, which I understand had to be strictly sort of audited? Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thank you, Irene. Volumes, if we had three months of BG rather two months, we'd have been about 3.95 million barrels oil equivalent a day, so quite a step up. As we go forward, I cannot give you guidance simply because it literally is not on my radar screen, the production, because we're spending all the time on cash, what are we spending, what are we earning, and where are the priorities. So I hope production, to be brutally honest, apart from needing to be safe and reliable is an outcome. It will obviously be impacted not just by divestments, but also new projects coming onstream as well. So I do think fundamentally at the moment we're putting together the asset-level detail, the maintenance and the underlying spend program and we are aiming…

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Martijn P. Rats - Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc: Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask you a few things. So I listened to part of the media call this morning, and in there you sort of invoked a spirit of Mario Draghi by saying we will do whatever it takes to balance our financial framework over the cycle. And I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. It sounded like you potentially had something specific in mind. And also how far does the balance sheet gearing need to rise before sort of whatever it takes sort of really kicks in? The second question I wanted to ask is with regards to operating cash flow in the quarter, even taking into account low oil prices, there's sort of the $4.6 billion ex working capital looks a little light. And I was wondering if some of the one-off costs related to the acquisition, some of the sort of $1.2 billion figure that you also just mentioned might already have been in there whilst not taken as a specific, sorry, as an identified item? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Okay. Thanks, Martijn. Yeah, what I actually said this morning was in response to a question, so what's your break-even price in cash terms. And so far this afternoon, you've all been kind enough not to ask the same question, which you probably would have got the same answer. We don't have one was the answer because I would paraphrase Mario Draghi, we will do whatever it takes to balance the cash flow through the cycle, because actually there isn't an alternative if you want to quote somebody else.…

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Thomas Adolff from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Thomas Y. Adolff - Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd.: Hi, Simon. Two questions as well, please. Just first one on CapEx, and I guess there's no such thing as an apples-to-apples comparison when we look at the reported CapEx guidings amongst the supermajors. If we look at the $30 billion or so that you talk about, is that the right balance for short-term cash and returns and the longer-term health of the business? I'm kind of asking this question based on obviously today's cost environment, and it's clearly further cost reduction to come outside of shale. The second question on the Lower 48, obviously Marvin left. The Lower 48 is now part of Andy's portfolio again. I think back in November you said we're going to try to run it independently. And I think when I spoke to Marvin, he said I haven't quite figured it out whether it's the XTO type management, or whether it's the BP type management, which is truly independent. Have you figured it out yet? Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Thomas. I shall have words with Marvin. On CapEx is $30 billion the right number in the current price environment, well, probably not. That's not where we're coming from. We saw $47 billion two years ago, so massive reductions. But even of what we spent today, some of that was committed in an oil price environment a lot higher than today. So the unit rate of completing projects, think of Gorgon, Prelude, Stones, et cetera, Kashagan for that matter, (51:49), Galleon, those costs reflect a higher oil price environment, not today's oil price environment. So to stay in business and maybe…

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Alistair Syme from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alastair R. Syme - Citigroup Global Markets Ltd.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks. Hi, Simon. Two quick questions. One on OpEx, you gave a 2014 reference pro forma. Can you give the 2015 by any chance? And secondly, appreciate the Integrated Gas and Upstream from an accounting standpoint, but does that distinction apply only internally? I know Martin and Andy are running the businesses, but are people allocated to these different businesses distinctly? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: On the latter, yes. I mean they are being basically run as separate businesses. We had, although we reported externally an IG segment, which is basically the same assets previously, the reporting lines were not unified, should we say. So Martin is now directly accountable for activities such as Trinidad and Peru and all of the trading that is done through Steve Hill in Singapore. That's effectively how that works. On the OpEx, 2015 pro forma, it was basically interpolated between the two. It's somewhere around $46 billion give or take. The reason I'm not slightly more specific is there are some differences in sort of definitions and accounting treatments. So it's close enough straight line between the $52 billion, $53 billion in 2014 and the $40 billion by the end of 2016. Unfortunately, I don't think you can quite extrapolate that rate of improvement, but hopefully there's some improvement to come thereafter as well. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Lucas Hermann from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Lucas Hermann - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Simon, hi. Thanks for the time. And by the way, thanks for the added disclosure, which is useful even though it will require a lot more spreadsheeting. Look, three brief questions if I might. Firstly, hard choices given where you're at. Do you want to say anything around the Pennsylvania cracker timing, if at all? Secondly, just on cash flow, deferred tax and other provisions, and this is not the deferred tax adjustment you have been making quarterly, but deferred tax negative that's been running through your cash flow statement. Can you talk through that in a little more detail? I mean the number has become increasingly large, and just sits there as a big negative with no real explanation. And thirdly if I might, the operating cash flow in the Upstream business, which has clearly sunk over the course of the last four years, can you give us any indication through last year or into this year, what proportion of that comes from the deepwater, not the collapse, but the absolute today? What proportion is the deepwater that you suggest to us will deliver $15 billion to $20 billion of operating cash flow back end of this decade? And what proportion is the traditional Upstream engines business? That's it, Simon. Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Hermann. And apologies.

Lucas Hermann - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

You can call me Lucas. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: We have the same problem by the way. The hard choices, there are three or four big projects, and the first on the list is in fact the one that you related, the chemicals in Pennsylvania, the others being Lake Charles, Gulf Coast; LNG Canada, British Columbia; and Vito deepwater, Gulf of Mexico. Further, there's sort of the big four greenfield, over which we could take a final investment decision in the next, well less than 12 months. It's highly unlikely that more than I would say two, maybe only one, but will actually go ahead in that timeframe. And basically it's a choice of whether, what's the best way of retaining or maximizing value from that set of opportunities. The chemicals plant is probably the first one because of the timing of certain commitments that are already in place. It's an excellent project. It's got a diverse set of market exposures and risks associated with it, and therefore provides quite some portfolio resilience relative to the rest of the opportunities, not just the big ones, but the smaller ones as well. We've had quite a lot of discussion. Not yet pulled the trigger on it one way or the other. And certainly it's not a free option of course. There are costs of keeping the option open. So not a decision yet, but it actually is looking. If it were not a $40 world, it would be probably a very easy decision. It's a very strong and robust project. Deferred tax and other provisions, I will try not to go into too much detail here. We just added a $6 billion liability as a result of the PPA calculation called, effectively the tax benefit…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Anish Kapadia from TPH. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Anish Kapadia - Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. International LLP: Good afternoon, Simon, couple of questions from me as well, please. And just following up on a couple of things. The first one was on cash flow. Looking at Q1, if we take the cash flow from ops, ex working capital and post interest, it seems like about $4 billion. So if you take a full quarter of BG, feels like more like $4.5 billion or $18 billion annualized. Is that a good basis to estimate cash flow off for this year using your sensitivities? Or are there any other kind of incremental factors, incremental cash flow that we should think of for the remainder of this year? And a second one on taxes, kind of following on from your last point. You have seen a substantial increase in your deferred tax asset, and also your unrecognized tax losses. I'm just wondering, with BG coming into the business, is there an opportunity to accelerate the use of these tax losses with some kind of BG's key profit centers such as Brazil and Australia? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, guy. The simple answer on the second one is yes, but I can't go into too much further detail about that. We need to be both clear about the best way of doing it and making sure that it's agreed with the relevant authorities, but bringing together effectively income generating assets and tax losses in a given country is an opportunity in at least two or three countries I'm aware of. The cash flow estimate for the year, will four times Q1 suffice, well yes and no. It's not any one-off factors, minor quarter one factors get multiplied by four, positive or negative. So it's not the best way to look at it. Maybe look at the four year, four quarters going backwards, which were actually at an average I think at $48 cash flow $23 billion and add a bit for BG is just as good as going four times Q1. But that in itself is not to be taken as a projection. It's just a little help with modeling, because there is always noise in the cash flow statement. And remember that as we go forward, if oil prices do continue to rise as they did in April, we will increase working capital, and therefore there will be a working capital outflow. At the end of the day we work on the levers that we can, such as inventory levels and OpEx, and then the actual number to an extent will be an outcome. Many thanks. Move on to the next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes Guy Baber from Simmons. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Guy A. Baber, IV - Piper Jaffray & Co.: Thank you very much for taking my question. Simon, a couple from me. But you referenced the improved reliability in the Upstream. Is there any way you can elaborate on that comment or perhaps quantify the extent to which reliability in the Upstream is improving your production performance? And I'm curious, in an environment where you're attempting to reduce spending and take out cost and there's a focus on integration, is there a risk that you may begin to lose some of those reliability improvements and how do you mitigate that? And then secondly, in balancing the cash inflows and outflows, you mentioned spending, costs and divestments. You did not mention the Scrip Dividend, so I just wanted to get latest thoughts and comments around the extension of that Scrip program into 2017 or beyond and just what your most recent thoughts are around that program. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks. Good points. The reliability year-on-year, our production performance was about 110,000 barrels a day better than it was a year ago, just as a result of better reliability and availability. Big drivers there in the UK and Malaysia, but also the Gulf and one or two other countries. So that is a very material uptick. It is also coming off not the best of quarters a year ago. So that gives you some feel of the volume impact, and of course the margin impact does vary. But it actually more than offset the decline, the underlying decline in the assets that were all across the portfolio. Now this is just better reliability and in practice, one of the approaches…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Rob West from Redburn. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Rob West - Redburn (Europe) Ltd.: Hi, Simon. I'm chomping at the bit to ask questions about your Integrated Gas split out, but I'll keep them high level and save the real nerdy detailed ones. My main question for you is why can't we have more disclosure, specifically around the things we'd really want to know, like the average realized LNG price, or the cash contribution from Pearl, which is a very unique asset in that portfolio? Can you say what those are? Is there a reason why you specifically can't say what those are? And then my second question is just on the divestment targets. I think you mentioned $3 billion coming in from Showa Shell, Shell Malaysia, MLPs and Denmark. Can you tell us what is the annual cash generation from those assets? And how do you think about the annual cash flow you'd be willing to divest in that $30 billion divestment target? Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Rob. Disclosure, I appreciate the interest. Unfortunately, I would like to think we're probably as transparent as anybody of our scale and size. If we were a two asset company, then we'd maybe need to be a bit more, give more disclosure around key assets. Pearl remains one of the most valuable assets in the portfolio, if not the most valuable single asset, but is also a confidential one in terms of the agreements between ourselves and the Qataris. So it's a very strong cash flow, even in today's oil price environment, because it's essentially it's not production sharing, it's a revenue sharing agreement. But it's been a great cash generator both for Shell and…

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Jason Gammel from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jason Gammel - Jefferies International Ltd.

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks very much, Simon. I just had a couple questions around Motiva actually. First of all, I was hoping that you could address some of the factors that led you to decide to dissolve that joint venture. And then second, if I look at the assets that you have elected to retain, it would seem to indicate a preference for gasoline manufacturing capacity and light cracking capacity in preference over diesel manufacturing capacity and being able to crack the heavy barrel. Have I gotten that right? And then finally, I'll take a futile one here. Do you have an order of magnitude on the amount of cash that you think you might take out of the transaction? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: I'll have to be careful here because some of this is still commercially sensitive and under negotiations for how we finalize the deal. But why dissolve, the original joint venture was 1998 for 20 years. So there was, I won't call it a pre-nup, but there was an opportunity to look at do we want to continue and do we still have the same sort of level of strategic alignment, the belief that we can create more value together than we can apart. Now yes, we can create value together. But we said, well if we do split the asset is there a way in which we can allocate where we're both more comfortable that we can manage the value chain. And that's ultimately how it ended up. And yes, we could have taken one or other set of assets. But at the end of the day, a negotiated deal is what people will accept. And a balancing payment is likely to be made, thus it may be made in terms of taking on debt or otherwise. So you might not see cash actually flow. So the way the assets are structured, that balancing payment per se is clearly going to be ours, not in the other direction. So likelihood is it will contribute to the divestment proceeds. It just may not show that way in accounting terms. And it is most likely that Motiva will move from being an equity associate, something where we only see cash flows when dividends are paid out. It will move to a fully consolidated basis, but only half or just less than half as much. Now there will be some changes as of when we conclude the deal, but that's where we have to conclude it, and we'll try to be as transparent, as helpful as we can because it's a big piece of kit and the numbers are non-trivial. And it will impact everything I said about OpEx and CapEx for example. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Aneek Haq from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Aneek Haq - Exane Ltd.

Analyst · Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you. Afternoon, Simon. Just two questions please if I can. One, you talk about the urgency of the debt, and then obviously there's a big focus on simplifying that Upstream portfolio, which if I sort of think about the buckets you laid out, deepwater, Integrated Gas. I think I might be even a bit light here, but there's at least about 1 million barrels a day which is in some ways sort of noncore. And I just wondered if there's – or at least why would you not consider a spinoff or an IPO potentially if that sort of becomes the best option in terms of disposals and maybe even get the debt down that way? And then my second question, that $30 billion guidance just in terms of, can you just help me bring that number, capital invested, back to capital expenditures just in terms of the cash flows? It seems as though it's sort of trending around $27 billion, and I just wanted to get that cash flow equivalent number based on that guidance please, if possible. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Aneek. I may need to ask you to clarify the second question. The first one, the focus on simplifying the Upstream, why not IPO part of it or otherwise. Yeah, why not? Well, the primary reason is it's $45 oil, so how attractive would it be in the market? But there are no prima facie reasons why we wouldn't look at such a monetization route, if that were the best way to create value. It's not obvious that in today's market it would be. But the teams we have looking at monetizing assets are looking at a very wide range of assets that if we were to divest all…

Aneek Haq - Exane Ltd.

Analyst · Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open

No. No. that's exactly it. That's perfect. Thank you. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Great. Many thanks. Next question.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Thijs Berkelder from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thijs Berkelder - ABN AMRO Bank NV

Analyst · ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah, good afternoon, Henry. Two questions on Integrated Gas and the BG contribution. Can you maybe tell what the BG contribution is in the Integrated Gas segment? And secondly, looking at especially the production costs in Integrated Gas, can you tell me why they're so much higher than they used to be? Is that only BG for one and a half months? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: First question, about $200 million generated in IG from the BG assets which would include the trading contribution as well. The production costs, I'm not sure I have a response for you to be brutally honest. The production cost, if I were to think about it would include Queensland, which by definition are relatively high compared to our average, because many of our IG assets are associate companies and we don't show operating expense per se. They're accounted for as associates. So the operating cost is primarily in Pearl and maybe one or two other operated assets. But it's not showing as high, whereas Queensland Gas a bit as I mentioned earlier, the Upstream bears the cost of the, effectively the total end cost of running through the LNG in the midstream assets. That may be one of the drivers.

Thijs Berkelder - ABN AMRO Bank NV

Analyst · ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Your line is open

But there are no special factors in there? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Yes. Although, they will persist. So if I'm right, that it is in fact Queensland Gas, that will happen. It's also true, by the way, that our Pearl GTL had a big major shutdown that ran over the quarter. And the plant has just come back online in the last couple of days. So that major shutdown and also much lower production was also a factor of the back end of the first quarter. Okay, next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Asit Sen from CLSA. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Asit Sen - CLSA Americas LLC

Analyst · CLSA. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks. Good afternoon, Simon. Two questions, please. So first on Brazil and second on LNG. On Brazil, could you quantify production or current production or production in the quarter since it looks like one FPSO started there, and particularly since Brazil is such an important part of the story. Any color? And second on LNG, could you explain or help us understand the impact of Sabine Pass LNG exports on Shell's financials since there's a fixed liquefaction charge? The ramp up is expected to be fairly substantial, so I'm wondering if you could help us frame for us the potential impact on a broader Shell portfolio, please. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Thanks, Asit. On Sabine Pass, you're right, it's fixed liquefaction on top of effectively we bought the gas at the Henry Hub and lift. We haven't really lifted much gas yet. It's still early stages. And we've not been the lifter, I believe. So most of the volume I think in that first wave does come our way, but it's not yet had a major impact. And yes, we will need to ensure that we are able to sell the gas to cover the liquefaction costs. The good news is, in our view, that's the lowest cost LNG that is available from the North American content, including all the other projects that so far passed FID, which is a good place to be in. The fact that Henry Hub is lower also makes it potentially attractive to take the gas over to either into Latin America or to Europe. Brazil production, absolutely right, major factor. We're running around 200,000 barrels a day Shell share at the moment in Brazil, of which our own sort of legacy is around about 30,000. The BG contribution around 175,000 barrels a day. It is ramping up all the time. So we're seeing great well performance, up to it could be 40,000 barrels a day on some of the wells if we opened up completely. And that's one of the reasons that we're seeing lower costs than we had originally envisioned. Two further FPSOs will come on stream this year, so we should have nine up and running by the end of the year. So we should just see a little bit more every quarter for quite some time to come. There are actually 16 FPSOs in progress. And I think the last one comes on in 2019. So, so far so good, and the actual ongoing production, the decline rates on some of the wells, some of the reservoirs, very low. And it's still very early days to be talking about impact on resource and ultimate recovery. Many thanks. Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jason Kenney from Santander. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jason S. Kenney - Banco Santander SA

Analyst · Santander. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Hi, Simon, and thanks for your time with questions today. I just wanted to go back to cash flow as well, and here I'm looking at the medium term sensitivity guidance, which I think in the past you have said would have been around $3 billion to $4 billion for every $10 per barrel shift over the next couple of years, maybe moving towards $4 billion to $5 billion 2018 onwards. Now I was looking at some of the consensus estimates when the Vara Research guys pulled together the annual numbers and compared that to the oil price estimates that we use to drive that consensus. And I mean the average analyst there has got some sort of $7 billion shift for every $10 per barrel in the next few years, which is potentially over-egging the cash flow. But I mean is that a possibility? Or is it something I should be ignoring? Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: At $7 billion I think you should ignore, Jason. The production that we see going forward needs some growth before we get to the $5 billion of earnings and cash flow for every $10 sensitivity this year. It's probably closer to $4 billion than $5 billion as we ramp up. But as I noted earlier, effectively the new BG production is highly price sensitive, and most of it is directly price sensitive in Brazil, Australia, Kazakhstan, UK, Trinidad. Those are the primary countries that we're adding, and of course, our own new production is in the Gulf, in Australia, also in Kazakhstan. Therefore, basically every barrel brings some kind of price exposure with it. So we are becoming certainly more price sensitive as we go forward, but it'll be really 2017, 2018 before we hit the full $5 billion sensitivity. But we don't have any scenarios that I've seen where it goes above $5 billion. Simon P. Henry - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director: Okay. I believe no more questions or that's the end of the call. We're at the end of the time. So what I'd like to say, many thanks for your questions and for joining the call today, to everybody. Reiterate again the Capital Markets Day, London, Tuesday, June 7. Everybody on the call hopefully will be able to join us. I will be joined by Ben and by most of the executive team. Great chance for you to hear a bit more about strategy, intent, some of the opportunities, some of the challenges that we face. So very much look forward to talking with you all then, and between now and then please feel free to connect with the IR team and help with your own modeling, because I think it's in everybody's interests that we all understand this better quickly so that as we go into Q2 and Q3, we're all sort of working to the same expectations. So thank you very much. Have a great day. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. That will conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.