LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell became the latest big energy company to file a damage report on the impact of depressed oil prices, saying Thursday that its adjusted profit fell 56 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to a year earlier.
But the company's stock rose about 5 percent in Amsterdam trading, as Shell said it would maintain its dividend, paying out at least $1.88 a share for 2016.
Promising to continue to pay dividends, which some other big petroleum companies have also pledged to do, is one of the few ways to reward investors during the industry's lean times — although some analysts question how long the payouts can be sustained if oil prices continue to languish.
Shell said earnings adjusted for inventory changes were $1.8 billion, down sharply from $4.2 billion in the comparable period of 2014.
For all of 2015, its earnings fell 80 percent to $3.84 billion, compared with $19 billion in 2014.
On a conference call with reporters Thursday, Ben van Beurden, Shell's chief executive, said that the pending acquisition of the British oil and gas producer BG Group, which is expected to be completed in a few weeks, would be an opportunity to further streamline Shell's operations as it adapts to the changing energy industry.
Van Beurden said that Shell had already cut about 7,500 full-time and contractor positions and that an additional 2,800 jobs would be eliminated from the two companies after the merger. He also promised "impactful decisions" on matters like capital spending.
In an immediate move to preserve capital, Shell said it would postpone two major projects: a liquefied natural gas operation in Canada and a deepwater oil and gas development off Nigeria.
"We are making substantial changes in the company," van Beurden said, "as we refocus Shell and respond to lower oil prices."
Shell's diminished earnings came as ConocoPhillips, the third largest U.S. oil company, announced that it was slashing its dividend by two-thirds, and that it posted a $3.5 billion loss in the fourth quarter, compared with a net loss of $39 million the year before.
ConocoPhillips is the largest U.S. oil company so far to cut its dividend, in another sign of extreme stress, which has already led to scores of bankruptcies of smaller companies.
Low prices for oil and natural gas were responsible for a drop in ConocoPhillips revenues of 42 percent to $6.8 billion. The company also wrote down the value of its oil properties and exploration assets by $2.2 billion.
"While we don't know how far commodity prices will fall or the duration of the downturn," said Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips' chief executive in a statement, "we believe it's prudent to plan for lower prices for a longer period of time."
Chevron last week reported its first quarterly loss since 2002. BP on Tuesday reported a $3.3 billion fourth-quarter loss. Exxon Mobil on that same day said that its profit for the quarter had declined 58 percent.
For Shell, despite the cushioning effects of its large refining and chemicals business, the falling prices of oil and gas are still doing damage. Each $10 a barrel change in the oil price, the company says, has an impact of about $3.3 billion on annual earnings.
Shell had forecast gloomy earnings two weeks ago, before the vote by shareholders on the proposed acquisition of BG. A few days later, investors approved the acquisition.
Shell estimated on Thursday that its reserves of oil and gas still in the ground and under the sea floor, fell by 1.4 billion barrels in the past year, to 11.7 billion barrels, as falling prices had prompted the company to remove some of them from its books.
To assure future operations, oil companies need to add to their reserves to replace production. That is one reason Shell has been intent on acquiring BG Group, which would add an estimated 3.6 billion barrels of reserves.
Shell produced 1.1 billion barrels in 2015.
With petroleum prices down about 70 percent over the last 18 months, the oil industry is experiencing its most brutal downturn since the late 1990s. That period, a time of widespread job losses among oil companies, was a time of industry consolidation, as BP acquired Amoco and Exxon merged with Mobil.
Back then, Shell stayed on the deal-making sidelines. But during the current downturn, the company has been the only big oil company to make a bold move in buying BG Group for cash and shares now worth about $50 billion.
That deal proved divisive with investors, some of whom worried about Shell making a large takeover at a time when oil prices were still on the way down.
Van Beurden has long tried to persuade investors that the BG acquisition is not an expensive gamble but rather an opportunity to choose the best of both companies and to cut jobs and expenses like exploration. BG will also raise Shell's status as Europe's largest oil and gas company. But that distinction may be difficult to celebrate at a time of falling fuel prices.
Big oil companies have responded to plummeting prices by cutting capital spending and operating expenses. But with prices lower than most forecasts, analysts and rating agencies are beginning to argue that Shell and other companies may need to go much further.
On Monday, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Shell's long-term credit one notch — to A+ from AA- — and put five other European oil majors, including BP and the French company Total, on watch for similar potential downgrades.
In explaining its downgrade of Shell, S&P said it expected the company to generate significantly less cash than it planned to pay out in dividends and capital expenditures through 2017. The agency also said that Shell might be further downgraded after the completion of the BG acquisition.
"We now believe many major oil and gas companies' current and prospective core debt coverage metrics are likely to remain below our rating guidelines for two or three years as the industry adjusts to lower prices," S&P said in a statement.
The pressure on the companies' earnings also raises questions about whether they can continue to pay the generous dividends that are now a crucial attraction for investors — particularly if prices remain in the current range of $30 a barrel, or even lower.
BP, in announcing its big loss on Tuesday, said it would continue its 10-cents-a-share dividend but planned to review it each quarter. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in London, wrote that "2016 is likely to be a year of transition for BP with limited ability" to cover its dividend unless oil prices rose substantially.
So far, most oil company chiefs have stuck by their commitments to continue paying dividends. But the dividends, which cost the companies billions of dollars each year and were set when oil was selling for more than $100 a barrel, could prove hard to sustain.
Clifford Krauss contributed reporting from Houston.