British energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said yesterday that its net profit for last year rocketed 61 percent to US$20.127 billion, boosted by higher oil prices and rising production levels.
“Our 2010 earnings increased substantially from 2009 levels, driven by improving industry fundamentals, and Shell’s production growth and cost performance,” chief executive Peter Voser said in a results statement. “Fourth-quarter and full-year 2010 earnings were supported by higher oil prices and chemicals margins.”
Shell added that annual net profit, adjusted for the value of inventories of oil and gas, almost doubled to US$18.6 billion, compared with 2009.
Production rose 5 percent to 3.314 million barrels of oil equivalent last year.
Adjusted net profits in the fourth quarter, or three months to December, leaped to US$5.7 billion, from US$1.2 bilion in the same part of 2009.
BP
The impressive results were published two days after crisis-hit rival BP unveiled its first annual loss in almost two decades as a result of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. BP suffered a loss of US$4.9 billion last year.
Anglo-Dutch group Shell added yesterday that it was bolstered by cost-cutting and disposals, while it also invested US$3 billion in exploration activities.
“Shell has a strong focus on continuous improvement, reducing costs, enhancing Shell’s operating performance, and rebalancing the portfolio for profitable growth,” Voser said. “Underlying costs declined by US$2 billion in 2010 compared to 2009, bringing the total underlying cost reduction to some US$4 billion for 2009 and 2010 combined, a reduction of some 10 percent.”
SELLING ASSETS
Shell sold off US$7 billion of non-core assest last year, bringing its total asset sales to about US$30 billion over the last five years.
New York oil prices averaged about US$85 per barrel in the fourth quarter, compared with US$76 last time around.
This week, however, London Brent oil rocketed above US$102 per barrel, hitting the highest level since late 2008 as traders fretted the impact of Egypt unrest on global energy supplies.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts