Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) said profit plunged because of deteriorating refining markets and mounting losses in the Americas, surprising investors with an early earnings report that wiped out $10 billion in shareholder value. Europe’s biggest oil company, in its first profit warning since 2004, said adjusted earnings excluding one-time items and inventory changes were about $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter. That compares with $4.5 billion in the previous three months and an average fourth-quarter analyst estimate of $4.9 billion. “It’s a shock,” Jason Kenney, an analyst at Banco Santander SA in Edinburgh, said today by telephone. Shell had “to pre-announce to get the market to reality, but even so it’s a very weak set of results.” Shell fell as much as 4.4 percent in London trading, the most since Oct. 31, and was down 2.9 percent at 2,130.5 pence as of 8:53 a.m. local time. Chief Executive […]