{"id":47605,"date":"2026-05-24T18:30:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T18:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/47605\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T18:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T18:30:36","slug":"shell-misses-fourth-quarter-profit-expectations-but-launches-another-3-5bn-buyback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/47605\/","title":{"rendered":"Shell misses fourth-quarter profit expectations but launches another $3.5bn buyback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shell (SHEL.L<\/a>) reported lower-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter but announced another share buyback worth $3.5bn.<\/p>\n

The oil major posted adjusted earnings of $3.26bn for the quarter, in results released on Thursday, down from $5.43bn in the previous three months and lower than the $3.66bn reported a year ago. That was also below expectations of $3.51bn, according to consensus estimates<\/a> provided by the company.<\/p>\n

For the year, adjusted earnings totalled $18.53bn, which was down from the $23.72bn reported for 2024 and was below expectations of $18.79bn.<\/p>\n

Shell (SHEL.L<\/a>) shares fell 1% shortly after the market open in London, with the stock trading just 7.8% in the green over one year.<\/p>\n

Despite missing estimates, Shell (SHEL.L<\/a>) increased its dividend by 4% to $0.372 for the fourth quarter and said it was launching another $3.5bn share buyback programme.<\/p>\n

Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell said: “2025 was a year of accelerated momentum, with strong operational and financial performance across Shell.”<\/p>\n

“We generated free cash flow of $26 billion, made significant progress in focusing our portfolio and reached $5 billion of cost savings since 2022, with more to come.”<\/p>\n

The fall in Shell’s (SHEL.L<\/a>) profits comes as oil prices have continued to see a longer term decline over concerns about oversupply in the market, despite recent rises owing to heightened geopolitical tensions and risks of disruption to supply.<\/p>\n

Shell (SHEL.L<\/a>) had already given investors a idea of what to expect from its performance in the fourth quarter in a trading update<\/a> published in early January.<\/p>\n

In the update, Shell (SHEL.L<\/a>) said that results from trading for its chemicals and products division were expected to be “significantly lower” than the third quarter.<\/p>\n

In Thursday’s results, Shell posted cash flow from operations of $9.44bn for the fourth quarter, which was lower than the $12.2bn reported for the previous three months.<\/p>\n

Read more: Bank of England set to hold interest rates at 3.75% but cuts loom<\/a><\/p>\n

Net debt stood at $45.7bn at the end of the year, compared to $41.2bn in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: “The final quarter was one which Shell will want to forget, although the numbers for the year as a whole were slightly more palatable.”<\/p>\n

“The volatility of the oil price inevitably had an effect as tepid demand and oversupply put a dampener on any price progress.”<\/p>\n

“Some investors are unwilling or unable to invest in oil stocks on ethical grounds, but the company remains a core constituent in many traditional portfolios alongside the old adage of ‘never sell Shell’,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shell (SHEL.L) reported lower-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter but announced another share buyback worth $3.5bn. The oil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20685],"tags":[21768,23878,21054,1150,4496],"class_list":["post-47605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-shell","tag-consensus-estimates","tag-fourth-quarter","tag-share-buyback","tag-shell","tag-shell-plc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116630980339263884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605","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=47605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}