The Daily Telegraph: The week ahead: “Oil giant Shell suffered a further setback this month as fresh claims emerged that company directors knew as far back as October that there were problems with the reserves.”

Tuesday July 27

In April BP announced another set of record quarterly results, with a 2pc rise in pre-tax profits to $6.26billion. The oil giant also said it plans to sell off half its plastics arm to raise about $4billion.

The cash will be handed back to investors in the form of share buybacks, though the level of buybacks will depend on the oil price. The company reports first-half results today and analysts expect a strong contribution from TNK-BP as well as robust earnings as oil prices continue to climb.

Pro forma net profits, adjusted for special items, are expected to be in the range of $4billion-$4.24billion for the three months to June, up 31pc from the year before. The dividend is expected to rise from 6.50 US cents to 6.75c-7c.

Thursday July 29

Oil giant Shell suffered a further setback this month as fresh claims emerged that company directors knew as far back as October that there were problems with the reserves.

The issue will undoubtedly arise again when the company reports its first-half results on Thursday. Analysts are expecting earnings of $3.5billion-$4.3billion for the three months to June, against the restated $3.26billion last year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2004/07/26/ccweek26.xml