Shell’s profit drops to $8.4bn

Shell’s second-quarter net profit tumbled by almost a third on Thursday, Thursday, July 31, 2025.

The oil major’s shares were up 1.8% following the announcement in which it also said it would maintain the pace of its share buyback programme at $3.5 billion over the next three months, the 15th consecutive quarter of at least $3 billion.

Profit after tax dropped to $8.4 billion compared with $10.9 billion in the first half of 2024, Shell said in an earnings statement.

Shell’s finance chief Sinead Gorman told reporters: “We definitely saw macro continuing to be challenging on multiple fronts and against definitely a backdrop of geopolitical and economic uncertainty.

“We saw that knock-on impact on both physical trade flows as well as commodity prices and margins. Despite that, we delivered a robust set of results.”

Shell said it achieved $3.9 billion in cost cuts compared with 2022, part of a programme aimed at saving between $5 billion and $7 billion by the end of 2028.

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It recorded cash flow from operations of $11.9 billion in the quarter, down from $13.5 billion a year ago, Reuters reported.

The buybacks together with $2.1 billion in dividends brought shareholder distributions to 46% of operating cash flow, within its 40% to 50% guided range.

Shell’s adjusted earnings, its definition of net profit, reached $4.264 billion in the quarter, smashing the $3.74 billion average in an analyst poll provided by the company but down 32% from a year ago.

The company had guided in a trading update that it expected earnings to be hit by weaker trading in its integrated gas division and losses at its chemicals and products operations after an outage at its United States Monaca polymer plant.

Crude oil prices fell in the quarter as OPEC+, made up of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, began unwinding self-imposed production cuts that had been aimed at supporting the market.

The Star