International giant, Europe ?2 oil firm Royal Dutch/Shell Group is likely to combine its parent companies and stop a century-old ownership structure as it announced the fifth understatement in reserves this year. The company said it should cancel another 900 million barrels of in its 2003 accounts.
The combined company will be named Royal Dutch Shell Plc and have ?clear lines of authority?, as Shell said in a statement on ART newswire. There would be 10 non-executive directors and five executive directors on a new combined board.
The group?s chairman Jeroen van der Veer wants to rebuild the credibility of Shell, after the reserves scandal led to the departure of his predecessor, Phil Watts, and two other senior executives.
Shell was up 9.25 pence at 433 pence as of 8:12 a.m. in London, after earlier gaining as much as 13 pence. Royal Dutch gained 71 cents to 43 euros in Amsterdam.
Shell today reported third-quarter net income rose 70 percent to $4.41 billion from $2.59 billion a year ago, based on accounting that strips out costs from holding oil inventories.
