Oil giant Shell said on Tuesday it expects oil and gas production over the next three years will grow faster than previously forecast.

In particular, oil production will grow to 3.5 million barrels in 2012, up 11% on 2009.
‘We are poised to deliver a new wave of financial and production growth,’ CEO Peter Voser said in a statement. ‘We are moving into a delivery window across the next five years…We will put the emphasis on financial performance – cash generation and returns.’
‘The priorities are for a more competitive performance, for growth, and for sharper delivery of strategy. We have more to do to drive out cost and improve the operating performance in the company,’ Voser said.
Job cuts
As part of this, Shell is planning to shed a further 2,000 jobs, the statement said. It is not clear if these are in addition to the 1,000 redundancies announced at Shell’s earnings presentation in February. Those 1,000 job losses do come on top of the 5,000 redundancies announced last October.
Shell is focusing more on exploration and production and sold off non-core activities valued at $1.2bn last year.
The company’s 2009 annual report was also released on Tuesday. It shows former executive Linda Cook was given a €5.6m severance payment after resigning in the wake of a restructuring programme.
For the Times report on this, click here