Any rummors about possible divestment of Shell Chemicals ? Have heard that they want to somehow separate it.
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Not a rumour
Rumor .. BUT, I hope it was true.
@g5 sadly that’s the one thing that you can count on shell. Shell will always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. Sell low and buy high. The cycle repeats.
@ca I saw that, the news for the last 30 days are disastrous for him and Shell. And we honestly saw all of that coming.
Surprised it took this long for his mess to spill into plain view
Good god I hope the rumor is true. It’s the only thing that will stop the bleeding of all our people/assets and strategy.
We have no refineries, he’s pushing to sell chemicals, we only have trading left and the economic outlook of the price of oil for 2026 seems abysmal. But let’s not forget all the cash he burned buying back stock which in 2026 might come crashing down because of the price of oil.
Wow great strategy Wael…
absolutely. was a question from the audience at woodcreek. same townhall where colette was introduced as new us chair
@c4
Here is another rumor. Wael is on his way out. Like Pete Voser’s tenure. Wael does not know what will happen in 2-3 years time since he won’t be around. The board is getting tired of his leadership and vision.
@c4: Wael seems to be having second thoughts about going all-in on LNG, right when Gulf Coast LNG is booming. Business 101: LNG now has a low barrier to entry, meaning anyone with enough capital can jump in, so doubling down at this moment hardly looks like a defensible strategy.
"In a townhall a few months ago in the US, Wael was asked what we do now when the price of barrels is low since we don’t have refineries. His answer was chemicals. Just like refineries, they take in barrels and put out chemicals."
So YL wants to divest chemicals, yet he seriously claimed chemicals are our answer when crude prices are low? He actually said that with a straight face?
Rumours, OP? This has been public since CMD ’25.
@c6
Wael evidently believes shareholders will find that sort of long-range breakup planning reassuring. Anything, it seems, to give the impression of added shareholder value and a rising share price, even if it comes at everyone else’s expense. Quite the “superpower,” indeed.
What exactly was Wael trying to accomplish by telling Chemicals he wants a “divorce” five years from now and then claiming that is transparency? In what world does someone tell their spouse they plan to end the marriage in five years and call that honest communication? What a terrific way to boost morale.
Every time Wael speaks, his messaging comes across as increasingly anti-chemicals, almost as if the chemicals business is getting in the way of his bonus and personal compensation metrics. At this point, I would not be surprised if Wael ends up selling chemical at the bottom, even after he insisted we were committed to waiting until chemicals worked their way out of the prolonged trough. Wael seems ready to repeat the same old LT pattern of selling low.
Do you think the Board is finally starting to rein Wael in, or at least put real pressure on his chemical divestment plans instead of just rubber-stamping them?
ehhhh he is down to sell chemicals but chemicals also has turnaround plans in place and is on track.
i would not be willing to say that trigger will get pulled for sure
@aw mostly agree, but I think we’re done selling refineries. The ones left are needed for trading. Huibert was the advocate for selling refineries but LT was skeptical. He managed to sell off our footprint before the rest of LT (mainly Andrew smith) either figured out or spoke out loud enough that trading needs physical assets. Trading aspires to be Vitol, Vitol went out and bought refineries because they figured out you can’t make nearly enough money off of paper trading like JPM tries. Refineries that remain will stay only because of trading but that’s okay.
Wael already announced chemicals is for sale in the US and western EU. Not a rumor, he said on capital markets day that chemicals isn’t part of our core. Also, as part of the announcement, LT is seeking partners to form a JV of our remaining chemicals plants. This is why “Chemicals & Products” was split into “chemicals” and “products refining” under downstream.
One difficult thing to do in an oil and gas company is figure out how to make money when the price of barrels is low
The traditional solution is to own refineries. Refineries take in oil, and put out other products. And so when oil barrels are cheap, they have bigger margins.
But Shell and other majors sold their refineries years ago. In Shells case, they even turned one off without selling it - Convent.
In a townhall a few months ago in the US, Wael was asked what we do now when the price of barrels is low since we don’t have refineries. His answer was chemicals. Just like refineries, they take in barrels and put out chemicals.
And so - what happens if we have neither chemicals nor refineries and the price goes low? There are majors that have this issue - and their answer is that they take on lots of debt to weather the storm and make sure the balance sheet is strong when it’s a better market. Rainy day credit, if you will.
And so one has to ask… is Shell going to do that after it sells all of its low price barrel profit levers? Or it just going to cut even deeper and outsource even harder?
I’m betting the second one.
It was pretty obvious the writing on the wall that this was gonna happen