{"id":41846,"date":"2026-05-20T14:51:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/41846\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:51:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:51:23","slug":"oil-shell-tops-profit-estimates-as-iran-war-drives-crude-price-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/41846\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil: Shell tops profit estimates as Iran war drives crude price surge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Shell gas logo is displayed at a gas station on April 27, 2026 in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Brandon Bell | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>British energy major <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/SHEL\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shell<\/a> on Thursday reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter profit as the Iran war sent energy prices soaring.<\/p>\n<p>The oil giant posted adjusted earnings of $6.92 billion for the first three months of the year, beating analyst expectations of $6.1 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus. A separate, company-provided analyst forecast had put Shell&#8217;s expected first-quarter profit at $6.36 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Shell reported adjusted earnings of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/05\/02\/shell-q1-earnings-2025.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$5.58 billion<\/a> over the same period a year ago and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/02\/05\/shell-earnings-q4-2025.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$3.26 billion<\/a> over the final three months of 2025. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Shell delivered strong results enabled by our relentless focus on operational performance in a quarter marked by unprecedented disruption in global energy markets,&#8221; Shell CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Shell cut the pace of its quarterly buyback to $3 billion, down from $3.5 billion, and announced a 5% increase in its dividend to $0.3906 per share.<\/p>\n<p>The earnings come as energy supermajors experience a significant share price boost, with fossil fuel prices soaring since the U.S. and Israeli-led war against Iran began on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n<p>Ongoing and severe disruption through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz has resulted in what the International Energy Agency has described as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/23\/oil-markets-prices-fuel-shortages-iran-war-iea-chief.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">biggest energy security threat<\/a> in history.  <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"InlineVideo-videoThumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/108303510-17781503471778150344-45766123219-1080pnbcnews.jpg\" alt=\"Shell first-quarter profits surge to $6.9 billion amid Middle East conflict\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Oil prices have climbed roughly 40% since the Iran war began, although both Brent crude futures and U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/05\/06\/oil-prices-trump-pauses-strait-of-hormuz-escort-effort.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fell sharply<\/a> in the previous session amid hopes of an end to the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Shell&#8217;s net debt came in at $52.6 billion at the end of the first quarter, up from $45.7 billion at the end of last year. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Shell&#8217;s Q1 results are better than expectations, both market expectations and my own expectations,&#8221; Maurizio Carulli, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot Investment Management, told CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/squawk-box-europe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Squawk Box Europe<\/a>&#8221; on Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Net debt is probably the only minor negative because it has increased from $45 [billion] to $46 billion at the end of the past year to $52.6 billion this quarter. This is, however, mainly because of the working capital effect, when you have rising oil prices, there is a negative effect in terms of the value of inventories,&#8221; he added. <\/p>\n<p><a id=\"headline0\"\/>ARC Resources deal<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Shell <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2026\/04\/27\/shell-arc-resources-acquisition-16-billion-energy-oil.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> it had agreed to buy Canadian energy company ARC Resources in an output-boosting deal valued at $16.4 billion, including net debt and leases. <\/p>\n<p>Stock Chart IconStock chart icon<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static-redesign.cnbcfm.com\/dist\/a54b41835a8b60db28c2.svg\" class=\"Collapsible-dismissButton\" alt=\"hide content\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Shell shares year-to-date.<\/p>\n<p>Shell CEO Wael Sawan described ARC Resources, which is focused on the Montney shale basin in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta as &#8220;a high-quality, low-cost and top quartile low carbon intensity producer&#8221; that would strengthen the firm&#8217;s resource base for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Shares of Shell dipped 2% on Thursday morning. The London-listed stock has clocked gains of around 15% year-to-date, lagging the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/BP\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BP<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/TTE\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TotalEnergies<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/XOM\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Exxon Mobil<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/CVX\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chevron<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Shell gas logo is displayed at a gas station on April 27, 2026 in Austin, Texas. Brandon&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20685],"tags":[13785,6704,13617,633,1498,21024,21083,234,21084,6706,24,21085,189,1150,4496,21086,461,21023],"class_list":["post-41846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-shell","tag-lco26n","tag-bp-plc","tag-breaking-news-markets","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-chevron-corp","tag-earnings","tag-energy","tag-europe-earnings","tag-exxon-mobil-corp","tag-iran","tag-ishares-global-energy-etf","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-shell","tag-shell-plc","tag-totalenergies-se","tag-united-states","tag-wael-sawan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116607469989484470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}