LNG giant Shell reported a 7% decline in its liquefied natural gas sales in the second quarter of 2020, announcing a loss of $18.1 billion due to the impact of the pandemic.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Shell reported in June that it would move towards a substantial impairment hit, revising its outlook for commodity prices.
Accordingly, Shell announced that the $18.1 billion loss included an impairment charge of $16.8 billion post-tax or $22.3 billion pre-tax.
Liquefaction volumes also decreased 3% year-on-year to 8.36 million tonnes “mainly as a result of cargo timing”, Shell said. In the January-June period, LNG sales increased 1% to 35.65 million tonnes while liquefaction volumes dropped 1% to 17.23 million tonnes.
Following the decline, the company expects its liquefaction volumes to be in the 7.6-8.2 million tonnes range in the third quarter but also sees a bigger impact on prices.
Moreover, the oil major sold 16.65 million tonnes of LNG in the April-June period, compared to 17.95 million tonnes in the same period last year.
