Shell’s Slide Is A Major Red Flag For Oil Markets

Royal Dutch Shell reported a steep drop in earnings in the fourth quarter, and the financial squeeze may slow the pace of share buybacks and force more asset sales. Shell’s earnings of $2.9 billion were down by half from a year earlier, leading to a 3 percent drop in its share price on Thursday morning. After the takeover of BG Group several years ago, the Anglo-Dutch company is now just as much a natural gas major as it is an oil major, so the global gas glut is hitting the company hard. Shell is one of the largest LNG exporters in the world.…