Shell is planning for a longer period of low oil prices. But in the longer term, argues Ben van Beurden, there will be no change to fundamental drivers such as rising demand and the need for new supplies. Moreover, the industry should not be blinded by low oil prices. Even more than prices, the transition to a low-carbon energy future will shape its destiny over the coming decades. Carbon pricing systems are crucial in that transition. They encourage the quickest and most efficient ways of reducing emissions widely.

Last month, the United States restricted exports, re-exports and transfers of technology and equipment to the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field. The sanctions were imposed just weeks after media cited Shell officials as saying the firm was considering Yuzhno-Kirinskoye as part of an asset swap deal with Gazprom, announced in June.

The oil giant is to halt drilling at the Burger J well in the US Arctic, saying it can't justify the expense due to low oil prices. Shell only won the controversial permission to explore the icy waters last month.

Investors’s fears that Royal Dutch Shell will fail to complete its planned £43bn acquisition of BG Group have been exaggerated, Shell’s chief executive has said.

The Obama administration granted Royal Dutch Shell final clearance on Monday to resume drilling for oil and gas in the environmentally fragile Arctic Ocean for the first time since 2012, a move green groups vowed to fight.

“Russia sits on 25% of the world’s gas reserves and is very, very close to markets that we are very familiar with,” Van Beurden said July 30, on the sidelines of the company’s earnings presentation. Shell is also pushing “to see how we can work with Gazprom internationally.”

Compared with the second quarter 2014, CCS earnings excluding identified items benefited from strong Downstream results reflecting steps taken by the company to improve financial performance and higher realised refining margins. In Upstream, earnings were impacted by the significant decline in oil and gas prices and decreased production volumes, partly offset by lower costs and depreciation.

Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday it will cut 6,500 jobs as it braces for up to several years of low oil prices.

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant is betting on crude rising to $90 a barrel by 2020, a key assumption in its move to buy rival BG Group (BG.L) for $70 billion to help transform it into a leading player in the costly deepwater oil production and liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is days away from drilling in the Arctic Ocean—betting it can find enough oil to justify the huge risks that keep almost every other competitor out of those icy waters.