Oil Prices: Shell’s Q3 Profit Falls 10%, TotalEnergies’ 2%

Stories by Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja 

Shell and TotalEnergies have posted quarterly profit falls of 10 per cent and 2 per cent respectively, dragged down by lower oil prices, though Shell beat expectations helped by better trading results in its huge gas division.

While Shell, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas trader, is keeping its $3.5 billion buyback pace, TotalEnergies said it would scale back in the fourth quarter, under pressure to keep a lid on its debt.

Shell’s buybacks have topped $3 billion for the last 16 quarters. By the end of the year, it will have bought back more than a quarter of its shares in four years, Reuters reported. The buybacks, together with $2.1 billion in dividends, take Shell’s shareholder payouts over the last four quarters to 48 per cent of operating cash flow, within the company’s 40 per cent to 50 per cent target range.

Shell’s adjusted earnings, its definition of net profit, fell to $5.4 billion in the quarter to September 30 but beat the $5.09 billion expected by analysts in a poll provided by the company. French major TotalEnergies’s adjusted net income slipped to $4.0 billion from $4.1 billion a year earlier.

Shell reported quarterly cash flow from operations of $12.2 billion, down from $14.7 billion a year earlier. Profits at Shell’s integrated gas unit and oil-focused upstream division both beat expectations but were down from last year.

Total’s downstream results jumped by 76 per cent. European margins on refining fuels have soared more than 300 per cent buoyed by a European Union (EU) ban on fuel imports made from Russian oil.