Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC, Diversified Gas & Oil PLC, Chariot Oil & Gas

This week was mostly about the big cap oilers as both PLC () and (LON:BP) issued their third-quarter results.

First out were BP’s on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100-listed firm posting a tiny profit in its latest quarter as chief executive Bernard Looney said its main priority is to execute on its new strategy.

The oil major, which is in the process of a transition away from fossil fuels, reported a replacement cost net profit of US$0.1bn in the three months to end September 2020 compared to an underlying US$6.7bn loss in the previous quarter.

The new strategy has seen BP’s dividend reduced to 5.25 cents per share per quarter while over the next ten years the company intends to increase low carbon investments 10-fold through a US$5bn a year investment into renewables, bioenergy and early positions in hydrogen and carbon capture.

In the latest quarter, stripping out one-off benefits of disposals and tax, BP saw a loss of US$0.45bn with the performance again affected by lower crude prices and weak refining margins.

It was Shell’s turn on Thursday, but in contrast, BP’s FTSE 100-listed peer increased its quarterly dividend just six months after announcing its first cut since the second world war.

That cut reduced the payout by 65%, while Thursday’s increase was a more modest 4% but Ben Van Buerden, the oil titan’s chief executive, committed to raising the dividend by at least that amount every year going forward.

Shell’s third-quarter results to end September 2020 showed a return to profit of US$489mln, from losses in the previous three months, but were a 92% decline from the previous year.

Shell increased the quarterly dividend to 16.65 US cents but indicated the immediate target is to reduce net debt to US$65 bn from US$73.5bn at the end of September.

As part of that debt reduction programme, Shell said its fourteen refining sites will be reduced to six integrated chemical parks, with a switch in focus to performance chemicals and recycled feedstocks.

On the next tier down, () also reported its third-quarter numbers on Thursday, with the FTSE 250 firm saying the outlook for natural gas “is looking increasingly positive” after it put in a solid performance.

The group’s third-quarter adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) rose to US$75mln from US$68mln in the preceding quarter and US$64mln in the same quarter of 2019.

The US-based owner and operator of natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil wells and midstream assets declared a third-quarter dividend of 4.0 cents a share, up from the 3.75 cents paid in the second quarter. The dividend is now 15% higher than it was before the coronavirus pandemic – a trend at odds with many publicly-listed companies.

Among this week’s small-cap oiler news, Chariot Oil & Gas Limited () soared higher on Thursday following news it has received approaches from two parties interested in debt-financing the development of the Anchois gas discovery, offshore Morocco.

The Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African financial institution, has thrown its hat into the ring, saying it would be interested in financing the development of the Anchois discovery and future discoveries within the Lixus offshore licence.

Chariot said it had also received a non-binding expression of interest for the provision of reserves-based lending for the development of the Anchois discovery from an unnamed multinational investment bank.

Both expressions of interest take into account the estimated capital expenditure required to bring the development online, which is expected to be somewhere between US$300mln and US$500mln.

On Monday, Mosman Oil and Gas Limited () said it has executed contracts to acquire an additional 80.83% working interest of the Cinnabar Lease in East Texas for a cash consideration of US$62,500, increasing Mosman’s working interest to 97%.

The…