Outgoing
Chief Executive of the Anglo-Dutch company, Peter Voser, disclosed this while
announcing a slip in quarterly profits in earnings statement. He said the
company’s net profits slumped by 57 per cent in the second quarter compared
with the equivalent period last year.
Shell
last month, announced that company insider, Ben van Beurden, would become Chief
Executive on January 1. The company had already revealed in May that Shell
veteran, Voser, would retire in 2014 to spend more time with his family.
Blaming
oil thefts and gas supply disruption in Nigeria for the plunging quarterly
profits, Voter said, “higher costs, exploration charges, adverse currency
exchange rate effects and challenges in Nigeria have hit our bottom-line.”
He
noted that oil thefts and disruption to gas supplies were causing widespread
environmental damage in Nigeria. “These results were undermined by a number of
factors but they were clearly disappointing for Shell,” he said, adding that:
“We will play our part, but these are problems Shell cannot solve alone.”
On
Wednesday, it was reported that Shell was planning to sell four more oil blocks
in Nigeria. In June, the company had said that it was considering further sale
of assets in the eastern Niger Delta, where it has security problems. But it
said then that it was still committed to Nigeria.
Shell
has already sold eight Niger Delta licences for $1.8billion since 2010. The
International Energy Agency last month said that oil theft was one factor in a
fall of output by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
which Nigeria is a member.
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