The British energy behemoth Shell reported on Thursday that its net profit increased 11% in the previous year due to lower costs and increased volumes, which helped to overcome declining oil and gas prices.
Shell said in a statement that its 2025 profit after tax increased from $16.1 billion to $17.84 billion.
Last year, worries that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs might impede economic growth put pressure on energy prices. Because OPEC+ countries were producing more, they fell much further.
Since Trump cooled on reducing tensions between Washington and Tehran, prices have risen in response to his increased military threats against Iran, a major oil producer.
Shell reported that last year’s underlying earnings, which exclude certain fluctuations in energy prices and one-time expenses, fell 22% to $18.53 billion.
Net earnings dropped 22% from the previous quarter to $4.1 billion in the fourth quarter alone.
Chief Executive Wael Sawan stated in the release, “Cash delivery remained solid in Q4 despite lower earnings.”
He also announced that Shell would start a fresh $3.5 billion share repurchase program and increase its dividend to shareholders.
Shell’s share price fell 1.9% on London’s elite FTSE 100 index, which was down 0.5% overall, after the announcement.
“Quarter to forget”: According to Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, “the final quarter was one which Shell will want to forget, although the numbers for the year as a whole were slightly more palatable.”
“Tepid demand and oversupply put a dampener on any price progress, so the volatility of the oil price inevitably had an effect,” he continued.
Brent North Sea crude, the benchmark for global oil prices, fell 1.6% to $68.33 a barrel on Thursday.
As part of its move away from alternative energy and toward its fossil fuels sector, Shell declared in November that it was withdrawing from two offshore wind projects in the North Sea.
Sawan stated that Shell has “entered 2026 as a more resilient organization” in a video posted online on Thursday.
“We are demonstrating more discipline, raising the bar on operational performance, and making great progress to deliver more value with less emissions,” he stated.
Shell is concentrating on “lower costs, further performance improvements supported by the transformative potential of AI, and a higher-returning portfolio,” Sawan continued.
Like several of its competitors, the corporation has reduced a number of climate goals in favor of more lucrative oil and gas development.
The British competitor of Shell, BP, announced last month that it would take a write-down of up to $5 billion related to its own energy business. BP will release its 2025 profits on Tuesday.
Survivors of a fatal typhoon in the Philippines in 2021 filed a case against Shell in the UK at the end of the year, demanding monetary damages for climate-related damages.
In mid-December 2021, Typhoon Rai hit the southern and central Philippines, bringing down trees and electricity lines and causing disastrous floods that killed over 400 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The British law firm Hausfeld filed the action on behalf of 103 survivors, claiming that Shell’s carbon emissions affected Philippine villages by contributing to climate change.
