By Justin Scheck and Rory Gallivan 

LONDON--Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday reported a rise in fourth-quarter profit, showing how it is resisting slumping oil prices, which have fallen more than 50% since the middle of last year.

The giant Anglo-Dutch oil company's quarterly profit on a current cost-of-supplies basis--a metric similar to the net profit reported by U.S. oil companies--was $4.2 billion, compared with $2.2 billion in the same period last year.

For the full year, the current-cost-of-supplies profit was $22.6 billion, up from $19.5 billion in 2013.

Shell is the first of the four big, integrated, non-state-controlled oil companies known as "super majors" to report earnings for last year's final quarter. Analysts and investors expect the weaker oil price to weigh heavily on the companies compared with the year-ago quarter. Shell, though, had been forecast to suffer less of a year-over-year impact in the quarter than rivals because its 2013 fourth-quarter earnings were dragged down by issues including high spending and poor refining margins, which prompted the company to issue its first profit warning in a decade.

"Our strategy is delivering with good performance on our three themes of financial performance, capital efficiency and project delivery," said Chief Executive Ben van Beurden.

"These will remain Shell's priorities in 2015, as we continue to balance growth and returns," he added.

Shell said capital expenditure in 2015 is expected to be lower than 2014 levels, with more than $15 billion of potential spending to be curtailed over the next three years.

The company announced a 4% rise in its fourth-quarter dividend to 47 cents a share.

Shell said earnings in its exploration-and-production division were $1.73 billion, down from $2.48 billion, with lower oil prices offsetting benefits such as increased high-margin liquids production.

Shell said its production for the quarter was 3.213 million barrels a day of oil and equivalent natural gas volumes a day, down 1% from a year prior.

Shell's processing, or downstream, business reported a sharp rise in earnings to $1.55 billion from $558 million, "reflecting steps taken by the company to improve financial performance and the industry environment."

Shell's revenue in the quarter was $92.4 billion, down from $109.2 billion a year ago. Net income fell to $773 million from $1.78 billion.

Since he took over Shell early last year, Mr. van Beurden has been trying to cut costs across the sprawling firm, scaling back big spending, most recently when Shell backed away from a proposed petrochemicals plant in Qatar earlier this month.

But the oil-industry landscape has shifted since Mr. van Beurden began as CEO: A year ago, Shell was struggling to control high costs at a time of relatively high oil prices. Now, development expenses are dropping as the oil price remains depressed.

"We are taking a prudent approach here and we must be careful not to overreact to the recent fall in oil prices," Mr. van Beurden said.

Write to Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com and Rory Gallivan at rory.gallivan@wsj.com

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