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LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell boosted its dividend and launched a $2 billion share buyback program on Thursday after a sharp rise in oil and gas prices drove second quarter profits to their highest in more than two years.
As profits across the industry recovered from last year’s pandemic-led collapse in energy demand, peers TotalEnergies and Norway’s Equinor also announced share buybacks.
The Anglo-Dutch company saw a surge in cash generation, boosted by higher commodity prices and a recovery in global energy demand, which also helped it to cut debt.
“We are stepping up our shareholder distributions today, increasing dividends and starting share buybacks, while we continue to invest for the future of energy,” Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said in a statement.
Adjusted earnings rose to $5.53 billion, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2018, exceeding an average analyst forecast provided by the company for a $5.07 billion profit.
That compares with earnings of $638 million a year earlier.
Apart from higher fuel prices, stronger profits from Shell’s marketing division, the world’s biggest network of petrol stations, also boosted the results.
Still, fuel sales in the quarter were well below pre-pandemic levels at 4.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second quarter, up 9 percent from 4.16 million bpd in the first quarter.