Shell ends torrid year with another £3.3bn charge The pandemic and efforts to cut carbon emissions have made it a difficult year for both BP and Shell 21 December 2020 • 12:55pm Shell expects to slash the value of its oil and gas assets by up to $4.5bn (£3.3bn), ending a torrid year of big writedowns and thousands of job cuts. In an update ahead of its fourth quarter results, the oil giant blamed the planned charges on a revised outlook at its Appomattox field in the Gulf of Mexico, closure of refineries and onerous contracts for liquefied natural gas. The charge comes on top of writedowns of almost $18bn on its oil and gas assets announced in June after the pandemic triggered a collapse in crude prices that briefly went negative for the first time in late April.