INSTANT VIEW: Shell Q2 earnings fall 70 percent

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) reported a 70 percent fall in its second quarter net profit on Thursday, as oil prices and refining margins tumbled.

KEY POINTS:

* Second-quarter 2009 earnings, on a current cost of supplies (ccs) basis, were $2.34 billion compared with $7.9 billion a year ago.

* Excluding one-off items, the result was $3.15 billion, compared with an average forecast of $2.55 billion in a Reuters poll of eight analysts.

* A second-quarter dividend of 0.42 euros per share was announced.

ANALYST COMMENTS:

ALEXANDRE WEINBERG, PETERCAM

It's slightly better than expected on the operations. More important is the message on cutting costs, and there it seems the company has been progressing more than expected. The downstream is really poor, while gas and power and exploration and production were quite resilient.

JASON KENNEY, ING

"Blow-out numbers considering the environment. This is a big positive for Royal Dutch Shell, it looks like the gas and power division is very good versus expectations."

PETER HEIJEN, THEODOOR GILISSEN

"It's ok, it's better than expected. When you look at the downstream operations, the refining is loss-making, which is quite unusual; that hasn't been the case in a long while and has been caused by low demand for oil products, while there is still a lot of throughput. Refining margins are utterly low and that's been compensated by marketing activities in the downstream sector. So there is almost a break-even situation in the downstream business which is not so good. But the upstream, with the recovered oil price, is improving a bit. It's better than expected, but the numbers are not that good, in general.

(Reporting by Catherine Hornby)