The British oil giant Shell announced Thursday a net profit group share multiplied by five in the second quarter, to 18 billion dollars. The surge in profitability follows the surge in hydrocarbon prices.
The result also benefited from a reversal of provisions of 4.3 billion dollars, following the oil major revised upwards its medium and long-term oil and gas price projections, reversing part of the billions of dollars of write-downs taken during the pandemic. Excluding exceptional items, adjusted net profit amounted to 11.5 billion dollars, doubled over one year. And over the semester, net profit group share was almost tripled to 25 billion dollars, said Shell in a press release.
The group adds that an 8.5 billion dollar share buyback program ended on July 5, and announces a new buyback of 6 billion which will be completed by the announcement of the third quarter results. Shell “recorded strong financial results in the second quarter,” said chief executive Ben van Beurden in a video posted on the group’s website.
But ‘with volatile energy markets, economic turmoil and the continued need to act on climate change, 2022 continues to present challenges for consumers, governments and businesses’, he said. warned. The group had been forced to spend billions of dollars in asset write-downs during the pandemic, in particular a charge of 16.8 billion in the second quarter of 2020, in an oil market then depressed by the health crisis.
But the prices of hydrocarbons have since rebounded and have been soaring for months, particularly in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Gas prices, which had fallen following the peaks reached in March shortly following the start of the conflict, soared once more, following the reduction in Russian deliveries, and have returned in recent days to the levels of then.
Shell had already reported record first-quarter profit of $7.1 billion, despite a $3.9 billion following-tax charge related to the phasing out of oil and gas operations in Russia. Faced with the profits of the oil majors, London announced in May an exceptional tax on the energy sector, in part to help finance government aid to the poorest households in the face of the cost of living crisis.
/ATS
