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Shell Prepares for ‘Lower Forever’ Oil Prices

By Sarah Kent
Updated July 27, 2017 9:07 a.m. ET

LONDON— Royal Dutch Shell RDS.B 0.85% PLC laid out a pessimistic vision for the future of oil on Thursday, even as the company reported success in generating cash during a prolonged downturn.

Shell has cut costs and said it is preparing for a world in which crude prices never return to precrash levels and petroleum demand eventually declines. Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said the company has a mind-set that oil prices would remain “lower forever”—a riff on the “lower for longer” mantra the industry adopted for a price slump that proved unexpectedly lasting.


“We have to have projects that are resilient in a world where oil has peaked,” Mr. van Beurden told reporters on a conference call discussing the company’s second-quarter financial results. “When it will happen we don’t know, but that it will happen we are certain.”