Oil stock Shell (NYSE:SHEL) just offered up some bad news for around 200 employees today, announcing incoming job cuts. Investors weren’t completely displeased by the effort and boosted Shell share prices fractionally as a result. What may be most telling, however, is where Shell started cutting the jobs in question.
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Shell announced plans to cut off about 15% of its workforce—roughly 200 jobs—in its “low-carbon solutions” division, and some cuts are also likely to happen in its hydrogen business. Shell is making these cuts in a bid to simplify its overall operation and improve its profitability, points that the shareholders were likely happy about.
But that’s not all; Shell is looking at cutting another 130 positions, possibly as part of a larger overall thrust to improve profitability by reducing expenses. Further, Shell announced only last week that it’s dialing back efforts on carbon offsets and will no longer have specific spending and overall volume targets for these.
Yet, lest anyone think that Shell is abandoning green energy altogether, reports emerged just days ago about Shell’s deal with a company from Portland, Maine: ORPC. The duo will be working together on a project whose time probably should have come decades ago, in which the Mississippi River will be used for electrical current generation.
Is Shell a Buy, Hold, or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on SHEL stock based on four Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average SHEL price target of $73.25 per share implies 9.43% upside potential.
