Shell CEO Strategy and Strong Trading Recovery

3 months ago

Khloe Melly

"Yeah, so as you said, weaker energy prices that dragged down earnings a little bit. We saw that with Ecuador yesterday. But what was helpful for Shell was that there was a rebound in performance by its oil and gas traders. So last month, Shell had already said that oil and gas trading profits had actually recovered. Um and that was after Shell and also a lot of its peers had really struggled to navigate the really sharp market swings that we saw over the second quarter that were of course driven by a lot of geopolitical uncertainty. Um Shell also maintain the pace of share buybacks which is something that investors care a lot about when it comes to those oil majors and that really reassured the market. Um it seems that the overall the CEO strategy has been working out quite well for Shell. He's been spending the past couple of years cutting costs and getting rid of underperforming assets to try and close that valuation gap with US rivals. And so far that seems to be working quite well. Uh shares are up 16% uh since the start of 2025 and outperforming its peers. So everything is going quite well for Shell so far. We'll see how BP actually does next week."

The insight outlines Shell's strong recovery in oil and gas trading profits amid volatile energy prices, highlighting its effective cost-cutting and share buyback program. The CEO's strategy appears to be bearing fruit as evidenced by a 16% rise in share price since early 2025 and an improved competitive stance compared to US rivals.

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