LONDON (May 2): Shell reported first-quarter profit of US$7.7 billion (RM36.7 billion) on Thursday, sharply beating expectations after disruptions in the Red Sea and Russia lifted oil refining and trading.
The oil and gas company also said it will repurchase a further US$3.5 billion of its shares over the next three months, at a similar rate to the previous quarter. Its dividend remained unchanged.
“Shell delivered another quarter of strong operational and financial performance, demonstrating our continued focus on delivering more value with less emissions,” CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement.
Analysts had expected first-quarter adjusted earnings of US$6.46 billion, against US$9.65 billion a year earlier. The company had posted US$7.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, boosted by strong LNG trading results.
Shell’s chemicals and products divisions, which include refining and oil trading, registered a more than threefold rise in adjusted earnings from the previous quarter to US$2.8 billion, driven by strong gains from trading and refining.
Refined oil product trading was boosted by disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea as well as outages at Russian refineries because of Ukrainian drone attacks in recent months, finance chief Sinead Gorman told reporters.
Shell also timed maintenance at its refineries to the last quarter of 2023 while most of its peers typically perform such work in the first quarter of the year, giving Shell a further advantage in supplying oil products such as gasoline and diesel, Gorman said.
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