It has been reported that the Royal Dutch Shell PLC has a strong likelihood to visit the debt markets yet again this year in order to finance the upstream projects. However, the future for the oil company does not look too dull as they expect an increase with the gearing ratio from 0 per cent to about 30 per cent as the business progresses in the future.

It was also revealed that the company had issued more than $18 billion in terms of publicly traded debt in the year 2009 and it had a gearing ratio of about 15.5 per cent nearing the end of the year 2009 which was much better than meager 5.9 per cent which was seen towards the end of the year 2008.

It was also reported by the company that they would definitely boost their current production by more than 11 per cent by the year 2012 from the levels which was seen in the year 2009 which is actually a little more than what is actually forecast for that time and it seems that they were looking for sell off some of their assets and a lot of job cuts can also be expected.