Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s biggest oil company, said third-quarter earnings doubled as energy prices rose and it ramped up projects from Qatar to Canada. Net income rose to $7 billion from $3.46 billion a year earlier, The Hague-based Shell said today in a statement. Excluding one-time items and inventory changes, profit beat analyst estimates. “We would expect Shell to continue to perform well given the fact that its three key projects are now operational and beginning to add high margin barrels,” Oswald Clint, a London- based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said before the results were released. Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser is seeking to boost production with a $100 billion investment plan through 2014. Shell started the Pearl gas-to-liquids and Qatargas 4 liquefied natural-gas ventures this year, and also increased output at its oil-sands project in Canada’s Alberta region. Shell post adjusted earnings of $7 billion, compared with the $6.6 billion mean estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. BP Plc earlier this week reported profit that beat analyst estimates and increased an asset sale target by 50 percent to $45 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest U.S. oil company, is scheduled to release earnings later today. Shell’s cash flow benefited from a 33 percent gain in U.K. gas futures and a 46 percent increase in Brent oil prices from the year-earlier quarter. Shell may have received its first income from a $12 billion biofuel joint venture with Cosan SA Industria & Comercio in Brazil, according to Lucas Herrmann, a London-based analyst at Deutsche Bank AG. Of the 31 analysts that cover Shell, 24 recommend buying the shares and seven have “hold’ ratings. To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

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