{"id":43707,"date":"2026-05-21T09:06:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43707\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:06:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:06:41","slug":"shell-launches-another-3-5bn-buyback-despite-weakest-profit-since-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/43707\/","title":{"rendered":"Shell launches another $3.5bn buyback despite weakest profit since 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/80e9320782290045348c02c9413bcfdb.webp\" alt=\"Shell launches another $3.5bn buyback despite weakest profit since 2021\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"641\" width=\"960\" class=\"yf-lglytj  loaded\"\/> Shell launches another $3.5bn buyback despite weakest profit since 2021 Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock      <\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\"><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/SHEL.l\" data-ylk=\"slk:Shell PLC;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Shell PLC&quot;}\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shell PLC<\/a> reported its lowest quarterly profit since the start of 2021 as oil prices fell, but\u00a0announced a 4% dividend increase and launched another $3.5 billion share buyback programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Adjusted earnings came in at $3.26 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025, down 40% and below analyst expectations of $3.5\u00a0billion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Full-year adjusted earnings fell to $18.5 billion, compared with $23.72 billion in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The company cited tax adjustments and continued weakness in its chemicals division as factors weighing on performance, despite stronger results in integrated gas, upstream and marketing operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">As well as increasing the\u00a0dividend to $0.372 per share, the new buyback means Shell has now returned at least $3 billion to shareholders in each of the last 17 quarters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">However, net debt rose to $45.7 billion at year-end, up from $41.2 billion at the end of the third quarter. Gearing increased to 20.7% from 18.8%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The update follows a move by Norway\u2019s Equinor to cut buybacks and investment, reflecting pressure on European oil majors amid lower crude prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shell launches another $3.5bn buyback despite weakest profit since 2021 Proactive uses images sourced from Shutterstock Shell PLC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20685],"tags":[21325,22107,22106,1150,4496],"class_list":["post-43707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-shell","tag-buyback","tag-dividend-increase","tag-quarterly-profit","tag-shell","tag-shell-plc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116611775391743377","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43707","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=43707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}