By Adam Whittaker
Shell maintained its $3.5 billion quarterly buyback despite a fall in earnings as weaker prices weigh on oil majors' balance sheets.
Energy companies are positioning themselves for a period of weaker prices as oil demand growth looks stunted and supply remains high. This has put pressure on returns but Shell's stronger balance sheet relative to peers means its shareholder returns have been more resilient.
Thursday's buyback was the British energy company's 17th consecutive quarter of at least $3 billion of buybacks.
It came as Shell's adjusted earnings--a closely watched metric that strips out certain commodity-price adjustments and one-time charges--fell to $3.26 billion from $5.43 billion in the preceding quarter, missing the $3.51 billion analysts polled by Vara Research had expected.
Shell had warned that a weak oil-trading performance would hit its earnings. The significantly lower performance pushed its chemicals-and-products division into an adjusted loss of $66 million. The division had reported a $550 million profit in the prior quarter.
Within its core integrated gas division, earnings fell compared with the third-quarter due to higher tax charges. Higher volumes did manage to offset the weaker prices, Shell said. Its upstream unit also suffered from lower oil prices.
Write to Adam Whittaker at adam.whittaker@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 05, 2026 02:37 ET (07:37 GMT)
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