Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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EV charging sits in Downstream, even though the power generation and power trading sits in renewables. So this is bringing cohesion, removing interfaces and duplication and allowing us to make sure that we can deliver for our customers the decarbonized products that they want. And then being agnostic as to what green electron or green molecule they want just trying to maximize value for the group from doing that. Thank you for the question, Henri.

Operator: The next question is from Lucas Herrmann at Exane.

Lucas Herrmann: A couple, if I might. Sinead, this is probably directed at you because it’s LNG and it’s first quarter. And look, we’ve had a year of considerable volatility. You’re a month into the quarter. Price has obviously been volatile. But can you give us any help in terms of how we should be thinking about the way that the current quarter is likely to shape up in LNG? Sorry, it’s so short term. And perhaps staying with gas, if I go back to last quarter, gas storage, a lot have gone into gas storage. You indicated the benefits of that would be seen through the fourth quarter, maybe the first quarter. Where are we in that process? Has it all been released? Have the benefits been seen? Please, just commentary around both those items.

Wael Sawan: Go for it both.

Sinead Gorman: Thank you. Indeed. Thanks a lot, Lucas. Indeed, so you’re commenting, first of all, and let’s start with the LNG one, specifically. So in terms of the volatility and what we expect to see coming into this quarter. So strong pricing. Now if you go back to what happens, we’ve talked about supply, seasonality and, in effect, the dislocations. So in terms of the supply, you typically see us being a bit longer in terms of Q4 and Q1. And we would expect to see that playing out as well. Hedging will work as intended. I have enough sense to not try and go anywhere on that because it will depend on where the markets will play out at the same time. But seasonality and the supply side, we hope and expect to work for us on that.

Of course, it also comes down to how much third-party volumes we can actually access as well. And that’s — as Wael already discussed, it’s going well. And of course, the performance of our equity production as well. It’s great to see Prelude up and running and performing well at the moment. In terms of the gas and referring to, basically, we talked about — last quarter, I talked about how we had been injecting into storage as well. We’ve seen some being drawn out of that, particularly around Austria, so that has come out in this quarter, but we still have quite a bit in storage as well. Of course, it’s mild at the moment in terms of the winter warmer, if you want to put it that way. So that will have to play out as it goes through as well.

I hope that helps.

Wael Sawan: Thanks, Sinead. Thanks for that, Lucas.

Operator: The next question is from Paul Cheng at Scotiabank.

Paul Cheng: Two questions, please. First, Wael, as the new CEO, first, congratulations. That how you look at Europe in the long term as a part of their long-term portfolio given the political environment for your legacy business, I mean, you’ve been reducing your Upstream exposure in Europe by half over the past 5 years. The Downstream still has a lot of operations there. So I mean how do you look at that? And secondly, that if we look at in the past, both Shell and your peers sort of target or accept the wind and solar on an absolute return will be lower than your legacy business, like that you will target 8% to 10%. But is that acceptable going forward? And as a new CEO, when you look at it, will you be willing to accept just because there’s no carbon that we generate a much lower return than your legacy business?

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