Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, reported Thursday a small fall in third quarter net profit against a backdrop of sliding oil prices, and named former DuPont Chief Executive Charles Holliday to become chairman of the board in 2015. Net profit was $4.46 billion, down 4.5 percent from $4.67 billion in the same period a year earlier. The 2014 figure includes a one-time $350 million provision for future tax liabilities in Australia. Royal Dutch Shell PLC said that when stripping out the impact of fluctuations in the price of oil, earnings rose 24 percent to $5.27 billion. That measure of earnings, called “current cost of supplies”, or CCS, is favored by the industry to gauge underlying profitability of operations. “The recent decline in oil prices is part of the volatility in our industry,” said Chief Executive Ben van Beurden in a statement. He said the company is […]