“Shell” records losses of $ 21.7 billion in 202, the giant oil group, “Royal Dutch Shell”, today announced a large net loss of $ 21.7 billion in 2020 due to low energy prices and the massive decline in demand due to the Covid-19 epidemic, according to the “French”.
The Dutch-British group said in a statement that it made a net profit of $ 15.8 billion in 2019 before the start of the health crisis that led to a long-term decline in oil and gas consumption. “2020 has been an extraordinary year,” said Group Chief Executive Ben van Bearden. “We have taken drastic but decisive measures,” he added. In fact, Shell announced plans to cut as many as 9,000 jobs, or more than 10 percent of its global workforce.
The results announced by Shell and the drastic job cuts reflect the situation elsewhere in the energy sector. Shell’s annual loss is greater than that disclosed by BP on Tuesday, and amounted to $ 20.3 billion. British Petroleum also announced that it would cut about 10,000 jobs. Also, the US giant Exxon Mobil Group incurred a loss of $ 22.4 billion in 2020, while Chevron’s losses amounted to $ 5.5 billion. After the first quarantine measures were imposed in the spring, oil prices fell to all-time lows and even briefly in early April.
“The recent results from other major oil companies have paved the way for an uncomfortable situation, and Shell’s results do contain some hideous numbers,” said Richard Hunter, head of markets management at Interactive Investor. He added, “It is clear that the epidemic has had a serious impact on performance and oil prices in particular.”
