Reserve levels still a concern for Shell
Royal Dutch/Shell's £9.8bn profit for 2004 has been tempered somewhat by the ongoing hangover caused by the group's overstatement of its 2003 reserves.
Link: Oil reserves set to dominate Shell presentation
The oil giant revealed that it has had to restate 1.4bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe), and revise its reserves for 2003 down from 14.35 billion boe to 12.95 billion boe.
The company is now faced with the challenge of replacing the missing barrels. Shell disclosed that it had only replaced between 15% and 25% of its oil reserves – well short of its goal of 100% replacement, on average, over the next five years.