News and Media Releases

New business activity Shell Finance (Netherlands) BV: Issuance of Standard Financial Guarantees on behalf of the Shell Group

04/04/2006

Historically the role of Shell Finance (Netherlands) B.V. (SFN), an indirectly wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, has been to raise funds both from within the Shell Group and externally from the market. This capital raising was undertaken to support the funding requirements of Shell Companies. Going forward, SFN will no longer issue debt externally, though it will continue to act as a lender of internal group funds and in addition it will become the preferred entity within the Shell Group to issue standard financial guarantees to third parties. Such standard financial guarantees are analogous to Bank Guarantees and Letters of Credit and only provided in specific circumstances where the financial commitments are tightly defined.

SFN will receive a capital contribution of €4 billion that will act as collateral to ensure that SFN can fulfill all of its guarantee obligations in the event of any default. Whilst SFN does currently have US$1.2 of long-term bonds outstanding, these bonds mature in the relative near-term (2007-2008). Thereafter SFN is committed to internal capital raising only.

Moodys has assigned an issuer rating of Aa1 (negative outlook) to SFN. This rating is the same as that of Royal Dutch Shell plc. It is expected that Moodys will issue a press release on the credit rating shortly.