London (AFP) – British energy giant Shell said Thursday that its net profit tripled to $10.8 billion in the second quarter as the Middle East war sent oil prices soaring. Profit after tax for the April-June period compared with $3.6 billion in the second quarter of 2025, Shell said in an earnings statement. Energy majors are profiting also from their trades as oil and gas futures swing between big gains and losses on the war’s latest headlines. By Thursday, crude futures remained far above pre-war levels.
“Shell’s operational performance enabled very strong results during another quarter of severe disruption in global energy markets,” said chief executive Wael Sawan. Oil prices traded far higher in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the equivalent period one year earlier as the US-Iran war disrupted global supplies. Shell’s revenue jumped 45 percent to $96.4 billion in the second quarter year-on-year. It noted, however, that “higher realised prices” were “partly offset by lower volumes, mainly due to the impact of the Middle East conflict.”
Shell said that its gas production had slumped in the April-June period to 631,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily from 909,000 barrels per day in the first quarter. Its gas output was impacted after the world’s largest liquefied natural gas hub, Ras Laffan in northern Qatar, suffered significant damage in the war. Shell added Thursday that its latest share buyback would return $3 billion to shareholders. Following the company update, Shell’s share price rose 1.6 percent in early trading on London’s top-tier FTSE 100 index, which was up 0.6 percent overall. “Records for both upstream production in Brazil and refinery utilisation have helped counter hindered Middle East output,” noted Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Interactive Investor.
– ‘Obscene numbers’ –
The huge earnings and returns to shareholders once again prompted strong reaction from NGOs, as they link fossil fuel companies to severe climate events. “We’re running out of words to describe the obscenity of these numbers,” Greenpeace political campaigner Rudy Schulkind said in a statement. “Europe is engulfed by apocalyptic wildfires, communities across Asia are reeling from devastating floods, and the UK battles through drought and yet more dangerous heat. These aren’t anomalies, they’re the defining story of the fossil fuel age.”
French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies last week reported that its net profit doubled in the second quarter to $5.4 billion. Oxfam has projected full-year profits of the world’s biggest energy groups — BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — amount to $147 billion, as it called for them to be taxed more. “Big Oil’s greed is incompatible with a liveable planet and unless governments rein it in, they will make a mockery of international climate targets,” Oxfam’s climate policy lead Mariana Paoli said ahead of Shell’s update. Oxfam estimated that a tax on the profits of the largest fossil fuel corporations could raise up to $400 billion globally in its first year.
© 2024 AFP
