LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) beat analysts' forecasts with a sharp rise in underlying profits on Thursday, as high oil prices more than compensated for production losses due to U.S. hurricanes.
The world's third-largest listed oil firm by market capitalization said in a statement that its current cost of supply (CCS) net profit, which strips out gains from rises in the value of fuel inventories, rose 68 percent to $7.369 billion.
Excluding one-off items of $1.569 billion, Shell's ``clean'' CCS earnings were $5.8 billion.
A Reuters poll of 10 analysts gave an average forecast of $5.12 billion for Shell's clean CCS profit.
Investors and analysts focus on the clean CCS figure, considering it the best measure of Shell's underlying health.