Shell: Giddy Success and Old Fiasco

Shell yesterday announced the biggest annual profit ever made by a UK company due to soaring oil prices last year.
However, the company also said it was downgrading its proved energy reserves for 2003 by 1.4 billion barrels.

Shell said 2004 profits would come in at 9.8 billion pounds, some 48 per cent higher than its 2003 performance. Fourth-quarter income doubled to 2.7bn pounds, thanks to high price of fuel.

Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said the performance reflected a "year of extremes" at the company, which has suffered the humiliation of five downgrades of oil reserves since the beginning of last year.