Shell’s profit more than doubles to US$9.8 billion as US-Iran war boosts oil, gas prices
This is the firm’s highest quarterly profit and its highest operating cash flow since 2022
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[LONDON] Shell’s adjusted earnings, its measure of net profit, more than doubled from last year to US$9.84 billion in the second quarter of 2026, beating expectations, helped by higher energy prices and increased market volatility during the Middle East conflict.
Higher oil and gas prices, stronger LNG and oil trading and improved chemicals margins helped support the British major’s earnings, offsetting lower sales volumes caused by disruptions to its Qatar operations.
Analysts had expected net profit of US$8.92 billion, according to a company-provided consensus, compared with US$4.26 billion a year earlier.
Shell has benefitted from the market disruptions and volatility caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran, creating more opportunities for the large trading businesses operated by companies such as Shell, BP and TotalEnergies.
Highest profit since 2022
Shell reported its highest quarterly profit and its highest operating cash flow, including working-capital movements, since 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended global energy markets. Still, it said it would maintain the pace of its share buyback programme at US$3 billion over the next three months.
Profits from Shell’s integrated gas business, which includes the world’s biggest trading desk for the fuel, comfortably beat expectations at US$2.7 billion, 55 per cent above last year’s.
Its chemicals and products unit, home to its oil product trading desk, also outperformed expectations at US$2.3 billion, compared with US$118 million a year ago.
Production at Shell’s Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar was halted in March after an attack damaged one of the facility’s two trains. Shell has said repairs could take about a year.
The Middle East accounts for about 20 per cent of Shell’s oil and gas production, or 550,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with about 10 per cent linked to Qatar.
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Shell’s net debt dropped to US$41.8 billion, from US$52.6 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Its gearing, or debt-to-equity ratio including leases, fell to 18.7 per cent from 23.2 per cent last quarter and below Shell’s stated comfort level of 20 per cent. REUTERS
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