Earnings call transcript: Shell Q3 2025 earnings miss forecasts, stock steady

Shell PLC (SHEL) reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings on October 30, revealing a significant miss in earnings per share (EPS) against analyst forecasts. Despite this, the stock remained stable in pre-market trading, reflecting a complex blend of investor sentiment influenced by both operational successes and financial challenges.

Key Takeaways

• Shell’s Q3 EPS was $0.93, falling short of the $1.62 forecast.
• Revenue came in slightly below expectations at $68.15 billion.
• The company announced a $3.5 billion share buyback program.
• Strong operational performance in integrated gas and upstream sectors.
• Pre-market stock price rose slightly by 0.04% to $75.58.

Company Performance

Shell’s overall performance this quarter was a mix of operational strength and financial shortfalls. While the company reported robust cash flow from operations at $12.2 billion and a decrease in net debt, the significant miss in EPS indicates potential underlying challenges. The company’s focus on its integrated gas and upstream operations, particularly in regions like Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico, continues to bolster its production capabilities.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $68.15 billion, slightly below forecast.
• Earnings per share: $0.93, down from expectations.
• Adjusted earnings: $5.4 billion.
• Cash flow from operations: $12.2 billion.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Shell’s Q3 EPS of $0.93 was a notable 42.59% below the forecasted $1.62, marking a significant miss. This performance diverges from previous quarters where the company typically met or exceeded expectations, highlighting potential issues that may need addressing.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings miss, Shell’s stock saw a minor increase of 0.04% in pre-market trading, reaching $75.58. This stability suggests that investors may be weighing the company’s operational achievements and ongoing share buyback program against the disappointing earnings results.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Shell remains focused on its strategic goals, including targeting 1 million barrels per day of oil equivalent by 2030 and maintaining break-even prices below $35 per barrel. The company also plans to continue exploring inorganic investment opportunities and enhancing its AI and digital capabilities for operational improvements.

Executive Commentary

CEO Wael Sawan remarked, "We delivered a strong set of results despite the continued volatility we see," emphasizing the company’s resilience amidst market challenges. CFO Sinead Gorman highlighted the company’s bullish outlook on biofuels trading, reinforcing confidence in Shell’s diversified energy strategy.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential oil market oversupply in 2026 could pressure prices.
• Challenges in the chemicals business may affect future earnings.
• Geopolitical dynamics could impact energy markets and operations.
• The ongoing need to balance shareholder distributions with capital investment.
• Market volatility and macroeconomic pressures remain persistent threats.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts probed into Shell’s plans for LNG Canada phase two and the deployment of AI across operations. Discussions also covered challenges in the chemicals business and the company’s approach to renewable investments, signaling areas of interest and concern for stakeholders.

Full transcript - Shell PLC ADR (SHEL) Q3 2025:

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Welcome to Shell’s third quarter 2025 financial results announcement. Shell’s CFO Sinead Gorman will present the results, then host a Q&A session alongside Shell CEO Wael Sawan. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press Star 2. We will now begin. Welcome to Shell’s third quarter 2025 results presentation. This quarter we delivered another strong set of results. Our adjusted earnings were $5.4 billion and we generated $12.2 billion in cash flow from operations. The quarter-on-quarter improvement was driven by strong performance across all, demonstrating positive momentum. This quarter clearly illustrates how our focus on performance, discipline, and simplification is laying the foundations of a winning performance culture across Shell. Let’s start with performance in integrated gas.

Strong operational delivery drove higher liquefaction volumes, which in turn enabled a higher contribution from LNG trading and optimization. This quarter, the startup of LNG Canada, where 13 cargoes were delivered from Train 1 in Q3, contributed to these volumes, and there’s more to come with the expected startup of Train 2 later this quarter. In upstream, our strong operational performance resulted in higher production. Together, Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico made up more than half of our liquids production in upstream. In Brazil, we achieved our highest ever quarterly production, and in the Gulf of Mexico, we reached our highest quarterly production level since 2005. Both were supported by successful project ramp-ups such as the Whale project in the Gulf of Mexico, which reached nameplate capacity with wells producing above the investment case expectations.

This was achieved in less than half the expected time, showing the benefit of our design one, build many philosophy. We also saw numerous examples of operational excellence in other parts of the company. In marketing, the business delivered its second highest quarterly adjusted earnings in over a decade as we continue to capture more value through growing margins of our premium products, chemicals, and products. Results also improved quarter-on-quarter with stronger crude and products trading, while chemicals continues to face challenges with weak margins. Moving to our second focus area, simplification, where the organization is making real progress. At our QGC asset in Australia, for instance, production reached an all-time high in the third quarter.

This was supported by a reduction of almost 90% in well site permits, ensuring operations are not only safe and fit for purpose, but also allowing the team to free up time for even more value-added activities. We’re also simplifying our portfolio just as we said we would at Capital Markets Day. We continue to maintain a relentless focus on value over volume, high grading the portfolio where we see the opportunities to do so, and you can see this in our Mobility business. Year to date, we’ve divested or closed some 400 lower-performing retail sites. Beyond Mobility, we’ve completed the divestment of the non-core interest in the Colonial Pipeline, which generated around $1 billion in proceeds.

We also completed the sell down of five Savion solar projects as part of our Power strategy, where we are allocating capital to parts of the value chain that offer higher returns and where we have differentiated capabilities. Our third focus area is discipline. We take our responsibility as custodians of shareholders’ capital extremely seriously, and that is why we made the difficult but value-driven decision to not restart the construction of our HEFA biofuels facility in Rotterdam. We continue to apply that rigorous, value-driven lens to all of our investments. Our disciplined approach to capital allocation allows us to remain resilient throughout the cycle while continuing to invest in growth within our $20 to $22 billion cash CapEx range, such as the HI Gas development project in Nigeria, where we took a final investment decision this month.

Looking at our financial framework more broadly, in Q3 our net debt decreased as we continued to maintain a strong balance sheet. We also continued to deliver attractive shareholder distributions, and at the end of Q3 our four-quarter rolling shareholder distributions were 48% of CFFO, in line with our target range of 40% to 50% of CFFO through the cycle. Today we announced another $3.5 billion share buyback program, which we expect to complete by the time of our Q4 results announcement. This marks the 16th consecutive quarter in which we have announced $3 billion or more in buybacks. Once this program is completed, we will have repurchased more than a quarter of our shares over the last four years. To summarize, in Q3 we delivered strong financial results, improving our performance quarter on quarter.

This improvement was driven by strong operational performance across the company, and we’ll keep delivering on what we say, focusing on performance discipline and simplification so we can continue to deliver more value with less emissions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. People dialed in, if you have a question, please press dial 1. If you wish to be removed from the queue, please press star 2. Phone callers are requested to mute the audio on their computer webcast and listen attentively to their telephone audio as we begin to progress through the telephone questions.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you for joining us today. We hope that after watching the presentation you’ve seen how we delivered a strong set of results in the third quarter and how our principles of performance, discipline, and simplification are guiding us in our actions today. We also released updated guidelines on how to model Shell, which you can find in our slide pack. We hope you find them useful. Sinead and I will be answering your questions. Please, could we have just one or two questions each so that everyone gets the opportunity? With that, could we have the first one, please, Luke?

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our first caller is Matthew Peter Charles Lofting from JP Morgan. Thanks for taking the questions and congratulations on the strength of performance in 3Q. Two questions related to operational performance, if I could please. First, I thought the performance in the upstream business across Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico looked like it was a highlight of the third quarter. How sustainable do you see that performance going into 2026 and beyond? Secondly, in the integrated gas business, to what extent was the third quarter improvement in trading supported by operational outperformance versus greater market opportunity? In other words, is there any change to the new norm market conditions that were referenced in the summer? Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Appreciate that, Matt. Thank you very much. I’ll take the first question and ask Sinead to address the second one. Very proud of the work in both Brazil and in the Gulf of Mexico. I think it goes back to a journey we’ve been on now for a few years, really trying to go back to what we’ve called the brilliant basics, rigor in the way that we are executing the turnaround. This quarter we still had turnarounds in both Brazil and in the Gulf, and those have gone to plan, below schedule, faster than scheduled plan, as well as actually below budget. Really pleased with that, but also just the rigor in the way that the teams are following through on all the different operational metrics that we are focused on at the moment.

I think across the patch I see that strength not, by the way, just in those two big basins, but also across our conventional oil and gas portfolio. In terms of how much is this sort of sustainable? I believe that the improvements we have are very much sustainable. Of course, we will continue to want to bring those facilities down for maintenance on the annual basis that we typically do. We’ve also seen some of the tailwinds that come from new projects in Brazil. You have Mero 3 and Mero 4 that started up this year. In a place like the Gulf, we’ve had Whale start up, actually start up and do much faster ramp up than maybe traditionally we have seen in many of our deepwater projects.

Across multiple measures, very pleased with that momentum and looking forward to sustaining and improving it because we know there’s more to do there.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Janet, thanks and thanks, Matt. Indeed, last quarter we talked about integrated gas and we talked about it moving towards a new normal and how I fear it was. It’s a new normal, absence, development, any opportunities to be able to trade around additional length or a variety of things that could occur in the market. What did we see in Q3? In Q3, we saw very strong, as well, put its operational performance not just on upstream but also on our integrated gas business as well. That gave us length and therefore the ability to trade around those in additional. In addition, of course, there were some arbs opening up in terms of the different price lines between both Asia and Europe as well, which gives the result that you see, which we’re really pleased with.

It’s not a given and we’re so proud of the team for what they managed to deliver this quarter. When we then look at Q4 and beyond, what do we see in Q4? Already we’re seeing some of those opportunities but nowhere near the amounts that we had before and we don’t see any one-off. Helps, of course, as we look to 2026, what we’re seeing at the moment, those spreads aren’t there. We’ll see how it plays out as the year continues. Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you, Sinead. Matt, thank you for the question. Luke, let’s have a second question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Lydia Rose Emma Rainforth from Barclays. Thanks and good afternoon to you both. Two questions please. The first one, artificial intelligence. We do seem to be seeing an acceleration in recent months. As agents of the tech available, how are you thinking about AI deployment? I know you’ve been doing it for a while, but how far through the journey are you? When you think about what it means to the cost base, does it make a difference there in terms of where you are versus plan? Secondly, can I do big picture and I’m sorry about this, but what are you seeing demand wise? Because clearly within the market there’s competing theories between is there an oil glut versus market starting to tighten next year versus inventories not showing up? How do you see that given all the demand data you have?

How does the buyback fit into some of that uncertainty?

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks, Vidya, thank you for those questions. Let me address them both, starting with the AI question. I think the reality is we are every single day learning the potential that AI brings to our business and continuing to grapple with that and what it means. It’s requiring us to relook at workflows, the way we do work in general, and how we can improve. I think we’re at the cusp of some exciting things ahead and we’re challenging ourselves as a team, as a company, to be able to embrace some of those opportunities. I spoke a moment ago to Matt’s question about some of the improvements in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, there’s platforms like Olympus in the third quarter of this year, but also Ursa. You recall we deepened our interest in Ursa, buying Conoco share. Those two platforms had outstanding performance this past quarter.

A large part of that is driven by our ability to detect issues before they materialize on the platform. That is very much leveraging AI, leveraging our data capabilities, and being able to bring those signals to the front line so they can intervene before a trip happens on a facility. It is already helping us today in the way we are driving business outcomes. We’re also using AI in trading more and more and looking at how we can leverage some of those split-second decisions to be able to make sure that we can create value and we optimize across the portfolio. The last thing I’d say about AI is of course beyond how we use it for ourselves. We are in constant communication with many of the hyperscalers. You’ll have heard about our deal with Google here in the U.K.

where we provide them the low carbon renewable energy that allows them to be able to run their data centers. We are in service of many of these hyperscalers and looking at the operations opportunities to do the same in the U.S. through our Savion entity. Really exciting space that we’re getting our minds around and continuing to drive value out of. To your broader question around demand, what we see at the moment is indeed headwinds on the supply demand fundamentals going into 2026 and a highly credible scenario that there is an oversupply in 2026. Of course, what we’ve seen in the last quarter or two is significant uptake in Chinese storage and we have seen a lot more oil on water.

That has in a way sort of pushed out some of the oversupply, and of course there’s the macroeconomic or the geopolitical reality that we see as well, which puts a premium on prices. I think in the short to medium term there are headwinds. Longer term we continue to have strong conviction in crude prices. Going forward in LNG, we see a balanced outlook for the next year or so as we continue to see that supply-demand balance in good shape. Of course, longer term we continue to be very bullish as well on LNG, and we can talk about that a bit more.

Finally, on your point around buybacks, I think in the context of the macro that we are going to be seeing, what we have said, what we have already guided and continue to hold on to is our 40 to 50% distributions from CFFO is sacrosanct, and we very much intend to be able to continue to be within that range. Of course, we have positioned the company to be able to do that and to weather any potential downturns that emerge over the coming months, years. Thanks Lydia for the question. Luke, can we go to the next question please?

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Jason Gableman from TD Cowen. Yeah, hey, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about the outlook for the LNG segment, particularly with LNG Canada ramping up and then Pavilion kicking in. If I recall correctly, you imagine that Pavilion wouldn’t really contribute this year. Should we expect to see any uplift from those two items in 4Q, and how should those impact results in 2026? My follow up is just on kind of the resource hopper. At the investor day, you had talked about needing more long cycle liquids in the 2000s. A couple quarters since that investor day, how is the organic opportunity set shaping up to fill that resource hopper versus your outlook for inorganics? Thanks.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you very much for that, Jason. I’ll take the second question and then ask Sinead to address the first one. Briefly, where are we? We have, of course, we continue to drive what is a strong organic funnel. We’ve talked in Capital Markets Day around a million barrels per day of oil equivalent between now and 2030 to bring online at break-even prices of just sub $35. There is a lot of work to do to be able to bring that across and to be able to drive the outcomes we want from that. Beyond that, I spoke at the previous quarterly call around exploration, how we’ve continued to really sort of tighten the team, get much more focused on the basins where we think we have a competitive advantage, leverage some of the capabilities we have, also digital and artificial intelligence to be able to drive that forward.

I’m pleased with what I’m seeing from that team and I’ll have a bit more to be able to update hopefully as we get to Q4 on that. I think in the broader context we’ve also done some inorganic moves. We’ve deepened in Brazil, in Gato d’Amato, as you know, we’ve deepened in Nigeria, deep water, not too long ago we deepened in Ursa. We are already moving with some of these bolt-on opportunities to be able to create value while, of course, continuing to look at other opportunities that are attractive. Like I’ve said in the past, our bar is high and we will continue to hold ourselves to that high bar to make sure that we are able to generate value for our shareholders from any capital dollars that are spent in that space. Shanika?

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Indeed. Thanks, Jason. You were asking about the LNG segment or integrated gas for us. We’ve talked a little bit about the new norm in the previous question as well. That came through from Luke, sorry, from Matt. When we look at that segment, of course we’re looking at both the operational capability and then the trading opportunities that come with it. On the operational side, teams, of course, focusing very hard to make sure that we get all of our assets fully running. You asked specifically about LNG Canada and, of course, we’re more than 13 cargoes, of course not out on phase one in terms of the first string. What we’re looking at there is, of course, when do we actually ramp up the next train as well. That will come between now and year end. Teams are focused on that.

It takes, it’s not the first cargo or the second cargo that matters, it’s actually having those up and running fully and therefore being able to rely on them and have the ability to trade around them. You’re right, that will be more into the second half of next year. Pavilion, very similar. We talked about it last quarter, if you remember. I talked about the fact that we’re looking forward to getting those contracts in. We’ve got everything integrated into the portfolio at the moment, but actually how we manage them and utilize them, we need some of those to roll off and be able to have freedom on those volumes. That will happen indeed towards the second half of 2026 as well. We expect to see that coming.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you, Sinead. Thank you for the questions, Jason. Luke, let’s go to the next question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley. Yeah, hi, hello. Two questions, if I may. They’re both a bit about sort of specific line items. In a financial statement, I noticed that the line item underlying OpEx was up sort of 10% year on year. I was wondering what lies behind this. Of course, I know there’s inflation in the system. There’s inflation almost everywhere and it can be hard to fight. 10% still struck me as a reasonably noteworthy number. Maybe a year ago this number was just luckily very low for some reason or another. I was hoping you could say a bit about it. The other thing I also wanted to ask you is could you elaborate a little bit on the sale of the stake in Colonial Pipeline?

The context behind the question is that trading is clearly very important for Shell and it has become more important for Shell as the years have gone by. I can totally see how an individual pipeline or a pipeline system might not be the highest returning asset. You could say, okay, part of the disposal program. At the same time, assets like that I would imagine are precisely the type of assets that really help the trading business. There’s probably some sort of trade-off there. I was wondering how that type of consideration comes into discussion about some of the disposals, particularly this one. Sure.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you for that. Martijn, do you want to take those two?

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Happy to, very much this. Thanks Martin. Two very different questions, but as you say, into the nitty gritty of our numbers on the underlying OpEx. Just a couple of things are really flowing through there. What you’re seeing of course is a combination of, as you say, inflation, although we’re doing really well to ease inflation. There’s also new assets coming in as well. A lot of that is about phasing. What you’re seeing is the likes of LNG Canada coming in with the full OpEx coming in of course, because it’s also just started up. You have a lot of those ramp up costs. You have the same of course, with respect to chemicals and Monaca all coming through whilst the platforms are still, or the assets are still ramping up as well. That’s two things that come through. We’ve also been very, very focused. Sorry.

On that as they ramp up, of course you see those big costs hitting, but of course you don’t see the full operational performance yet. That’s one thing. You also have the same in terms of the divestments, it’s also phasing around that of course we’ve not seen the actual impact of all of the divestments coming through yet. Particularly the refinery and chemicals plants in Singapore, we of course had costs as we handed those over and as we helped and the set up for the buyer, the same with Nigeria. Those don’t flow through yet as well. A little bit of that is phasing. Secondly, in terms of marketing, we’ve actually had higher impact in terms of advertising on marketing. Very, very focused, knowing exactly where we want to make a difference.

That’s what you’re seeing in terms of some of the marketing performance come through actually very well where we’re being able to push some of those premium products and it’s coming out in our actual numbers. Costs are, you know, if you do it year on year, they’re actually the nine month costs are 4% down at the end of the day. Doing really well and completely driving the team towards that $5 to $7 billion target that we gave, which we have no doubt we will be into that range. It’s just how fast and how hard we can go. That’s the first one on OpEx and it was Colonial Pipeline that you asked. It’s a great question, Martin. We’ve had this discussion quite a few times about what do we need for our trading business.

From our trading side of things, you’ve got a bunch of traders who are very focused on maximizing return and maximizing use of capital, as you can imagine, which is rather helpful from their perspective. They look at where are their touch points, where are their control points, where they can maximize value. For us, Colonial Pipeline was not one of those. It was just one that was in a long list of assets where they looked at it and said, you know, I can put my capital elsewhere. That was really the rationale behind that. You’ll see small numbers of those come through where you can see us reallocating capital. That’s everything about our story at the moment, as you know, reallocating capital to that best return that we can get. They brought the opportunity to us and we managed to execute it this quarter.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: That’s a good point indeed. It was the traders who brought that. Thank you, Sinead, and thanks for the question, Martijn. Luke, let’s go to the next one, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two, please. Firstly, on LNG Canada, I wondered if you could give any color on how you’re managing the feed gap from Western Canada. Maybe just a rough split between your equity tight gas production versus grid supplies and your ability to shift from one to the other, depending on prices. The second question is on chemicals. I wondered if you could give an update on the restructuring of your chemicals business. I also understand that Monaco will have a turnaround in the fourth quarter. What remains to be done in terms of works at Monaco? Thank you, Kim.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: I’ll address both. I think on the first one, of course, we have had in the third quarter a number of days where AECO pricing went negative. To step back and remind you of the model, we actually use the Shell trading organization to source feedstock for our equity interest in LNG Canada, and we use on the other side Shell’s trading capability to be able to place those LNG cargo or equity LNG cargoes. What our traders are doing is looking at what is the best option to be able to create value for the enterprise. Recently, we got up to roughly 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day capacity in Grand Birch, our Canadian feed gas, and we turned down quite a bit of it.

We were running at around 70,000 to 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day because we could drive quite a bit of the flow coming out of third parties, and it was better economics for us to do so. I was out in Calgary just a few weeks ago and just sitting in that control room and seeing how those decisions to be able to shut off a well and to be able to source third-party supply are being made on the spot with the trader sitting by the side of the operator to maximize value. Exactly the model I would have liked to see and really looking at how we can create value through that integrated interface between asset and traders in the business.

We will hopefully continue to see that, and of course, that will ramp up with Train 2, which as Sinead Gorman has already said, actually is days away at the moment, and we look forward to the first LNG cargo from that. To your second point around chemicals and chemicals update, indeed, I think you touched on Monaco’s planned maintenance in the fourth quarter. More work to do to really get ourselves to the point where we are running at full capacity in that asset. If I maybe take that question, if you don’t mind, Kim, and just step back for a moment. We said in Capital Markets Day 2025 that we have $45 billion of capital employed that is underperforming for us. $25 billion of that is sitting in chemicals, and $20 billion is sitting in res.

On the chemicals side, of course, the deep trough we find ourselves in means that what we have done in terms of the cost takeout over the last few years is still not enough to get us into free cash flow neutrality. I said at the last call that I’d instructed the team to take the next set of cash preservation measures, which they have now outlined. There’s a clear plan to go after them, and we have a trajectory to take out a few hundred million dollars more over the coming months from both the OpEx and CapEx. I don’t expect that to sort of feature in Q4 already, and you’ll remember of course Q4 in both chemicals and products is traditionally a weaker quarter for us. I don’t expect that to flow through, but I do hope to see it coming through in 2026.

On the other side of it, on the res side, in particular power where we have the bulk of the capital, we have been doing a lot of work to be able to reshape the nature of the capital employed in that portfolio away from renewable generation capital intensive assets towards more trading backed assets. You heard yesterday in the news we will have announced the withdrawal from Atlantic Shores, the offshore wind project in the U.S. We’ve sold some of our B2C platforms in the U.S., including Inspire, and we have also sold out of Cleantech in India, a 49% equity interest, not to mention the Savion joint ventures that Sinead mentioned in the video.

Lots of good progress to start to reallocate that capital and put it into the much more productive share that allows us to get back towards that 10% across our segments that we are aiming to get to. Hopefully, Kim, that gives you just chemicals but a bit more broadly how we’re thinking about that unproductive capital that we have. Thank you for that question. Let me now turn, Luke, to you for the next question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC. Hi, thanks for taking my questions too, please. Just going back to LNG Canada, have there been any further discussions on phase two of the project, and just wanted to get an update where we are there. I saw it was put on the top of the list for Carney’s major project review. Any color, that’d be helpful. And then just on the cancellation of the biofuels project, I’m trying to get a sense of how much of this was project specific and how much of this was sort of related to your view on the end market and policy risk, because obviously there is elevated policy risk in a bunch of ways right now. The alternative for you is to just keep deploying more capital to the buyback, which obviously the value proposition is fairly obvious.

Just trying to understand how the investment committee is thinking about political risk across the various FIDs you have in the hopper. Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Yeah, thanks for that Biraj. I’ll take the first one and then Sinead, if you want to address the second one. LNG Canada phase two. I think the biggest things we’re keeping an eye on at the moment is the joint venture is working with the various contractors to be able to at least frame a quality decision for us at some point next year and see what that looks like. What are some other important factors that we will have to sort of consider when we get to that decision point? Clearly, the support of both the federal and the provincial governments in Canada will be important and I think, as you rightly inferred there, we do see very strong support at the moment, both at the provincial and the federal side. That’s good news. We’re very appreciative of that support and that is enabling for a future investment.

We’re also looking carefully at the broader dynamics. Our view is that we are strong believers in the future of LNG demand through to 2040 and beyond. We’re also conscious of the significant investment that is taking place. The number of FIDs this year in particular in the U.S. is unprecedented. You’re talking of the 70 million tonnes per annum of capacity that’s been FID, 60 is sitting in the U.S. Now, if we then think about future investment opportunities in liquefaction, it is about making sure that we are delivering to the demand destination from the right supply sources. Where Canada features is of course they have a transportation advantage vis-à-vis the U.S. It takes 10 days to ship from Canada to Asia versus 25 from the Gulf.

There’s an advantage there and that’s why we’re trying to understand what that overall balance of new supply is coming in, at least in the medium term, and how that features in our broader calculus because not all supply is equal and we want to make sure that we get access to the best supply for our customers and also cost advantage supply to make sure that they can create value for themselves as well from that. Lots to consider over the next several months there.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Thanks Sinead and thanks. Two parts in the way to your question. First and foremost about the HEFA biofuels facility and the decision to stop. As you know, when we paused, we paused because we wanted to look at the ability both internally to execute and ensure that we got something that was what we thought was the appropriate return. Of course, how it would play out broader into the market. We took our time. It’s a big decision to make and looked at it in every possible way and decided now is the moment to stop. Right decision to be made. We continue to be very bullish about trading in biofuels in the prompt. Those supply and demand fundamentals, as you play out further, we need to see how they play and of course we do need stable policy.

The second part of your comment in a way was about how are we looking at political risk or just policy risk. You could go beyond that. You mentioned the investment committee that we have, that we sit on and that we discuss. We’re discussing all of our projects not only as a standalone opportunity, as a capital allocation decision, but looking at them in the aggregate. How much concentration risk do we have to different aspects and it’s exactly as you say. We’re not just looking at country, we’re looking at themes whether that might be around changing or regulatory decisions, etc. Making sure that we understand what could go wrong and how bad could it get or how good could it get. Exactly that. Cutting the data in every way we can to inform the best quality capital allocation decision.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks, Sinead. Thanks for the questions, Biraj. Luke, next question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research. Thank you. Good morning or good afternoon, guys. Good morning from Houston. I wonder what’s the path back to profitability for the chemicals business? I’m wondering, is the chemicals business, should we consider it core for Shell going forward? That’s my first question and my quick follow-up. I don’t know if you’re able to talk to this, but obviously one of your large peers had a different outcome with Venture Global. Is there any recourse for Shell to revisit the arbitration that you had? What’s the path forward for that as well? Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks for that, Doug. Let me take both of those starting with the Venture Global one. I think first just to say deeply disappointed in the outcome of the arbitration tribunal. We have a lot to reflect on and to learn if I’m honest in terms of how we can do better because we deeply believe in our case and we need to be able to continue to explore all pathways to protect our rights. That is something of course we’re looking at. Let me just leave it there, Doug, for now. On the path back to profitability for cams, I would firstly just acknowledge once again the depth of the trough that we find ourselves in and that’s been just very challenging to navigate. We have already been working on a reduction of OpEx over a number of years, but it is just not enough.

We were hoping that this is a typical cycle and therefore we would see the upside sooner than we are seeing it at the moment. We just don’t see line of sight to when that upcycle is going to come and therefore we have decided to really go after that cash preservation that I mentioned. The path towards free cash flow neutrality is squeezing more out of the OpEx juice and more out of CapEx. That’s where my previous reference to hundreds of millions more that we would look to be able to take out in the coming months to be able to at least get back to stopping the bleeding from that unit. I know my team is very, very focused on doing that. The plan has been established and now we’re going into execution mode to be able to effect that. Thanks for the questions, Doug.

Luke, next questions please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America. Thank you for taking my questions. In the same vein, perhaps can you comment on renewables and where you see the role here considering where the M&A market is, the PPA market, where do you see capital allocation and opportunities? Perhaps just quoting one example, it’s not just gigawatts but it’s also your JV in Brazil that’s crying out for fresh equity injection. How do you feel about adding more commitments into that overall? I suppose low carbon area. As a second brief mop up question, could you give us an update on the Venezuelan Trinidad situation and how you so far have been dealing with that?

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you, thanks for that, Christopher. Let me take the second one and then ask Sinead to address the first one. On the second one, clearly worrying. Our first focus is our staff and the well-being of our staff in case the situation escalates, which we hope it doesn’t. Clearly, the Dragon license, which was granted by OFAC to the Trinidad and Tobago government, through which, of course, Shell would be implementing that license. We still have to figure out exactly what’s happening there. We are assessing the situation closely, working with the government in Trinidad and Tobago and making sure that we are able to then determine how to move forward. I’d say it’s very early days to be able to judge exactly how this will play out, and we are on a wait and see mode at the moment to see what happens.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Indeed. Thank you, Christopher. In terms of renewables, as you remember when we talked about renewables in Capital Markets Day, we talked about our role in it and how we would play. There are two aspects to your question because you brought in both biofuels and, of course, the gigawatts, the electrons side of it. Looking at both in unison there, in terms of the biofuels side, I talked a little bit about HEFA, our view on, you know, let’s see where supply and demand goes into the future and about where we see the sort of trading in the prompt. You alluded to, of course, a joint venture or a company that we are invested in in Brazil as well.

Of course, it’s a listed company, so I always look to the company to speak for itself, but just, you know, priority is there for them to look at really all of the different options that they have in terms of the turnaround and to ensure it’s value accretive. We see their management team doing a superb job on that as well, making sure it’s aligned with all of our goals as well. Moving back onto the electron side for a moment, you talked about the gigawatts aspect there. What you can see us doing, of course, and what we talked about was moving from being 80% in producing assets or solar, wind, different aspects like that, and 20% in trading, and shifting that focus between now and 2030 much more towards 20% into the producing assets and 80% into the trading side. That continues to move forward.

While I talk to a number of those different actual capital reallocations that’s occurred, whether that was around Cleantech that he mentioned, Savion, of course, the opportunity where we actually diluted our stake in some of the producing fields, the solar fields, and actually kept the electrons, and that’s about really where is our strategy going to. It’s making sure that from a strategy point of view we’re very much focused on considering how can trading maximize the value from the flow, and that’s what you’ll see us doing. We continue to look for opportunities in things like gas-fired combined cycle power plants as well. You saw us do one of those last year, and we continue with some of the battery investments we’re doing as well. That process continues and really good progress, I would say. Wow.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Yeah. Thanks, Sinead. Christopher, thank you for those questions. Luke, next question, please. Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Thank you. Congratulations on all of the rejuvenation of your E&P portfolio through all of the FIDs and stake increases in the last year. I wanted to stay really on that topic and ask you what you think is the scale of inorganic investment that you need to continue this 1% hydrocarbon production growth well into the next decade, and if there’s any area in your portfolio particularly that you would like to deepen in scale. Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Yeah, thank you, Michele, for that question, I think. Thank you for the recognition on what already has been, I think, a successful strategy of Shell, focusing on areas where we do have competitive advantage and actually in all of them where we, where we ourselves operate. It is deepening of our existing interests. I mentioned earlier some of the potential headwinds that we see coming into 2026 on oil prices, for example. Of course, we have been positioning the company over the last few years through cost reductions, performance enhancements, portfolio high grading for the specific moment to be able to actually be resilient through a potential downturn. What we have been doing, of course, is preferentially allocating distribution capital to our buybacks.

In a world where there might be some softness in the future, I think it creates real opportunities for us both on the buyback side, but also to look at other inorganic opportunities, which, by the way, over the last several months we have seen more of those come through our desk, albeit none of them at an attractive enough level to be able to cross that high bar. I really hope we get to see some good opportunities come through in 2026. I’m not going to give a particular scale of opportunity because at the end of the day, what we have said and what I’ve said in the past that we’ve maintained is we want to be value driven.

We want to look at the right opportunities and make sure that we are creating shareholder value using free cash flow per share accretion as an important North Star for us. We will be pragmatic in the approach we take as we look at these opportunities. We know that between now and 2030, the requirement to be able to sort of maintain liquids flat. We’ve, by and large, you know, we’re almost there. This is not about 2030 where we have high confidence. It’s about building that funnel for the 2035 plus where we indicated in the capital markets day chart that there was a gap of somewhere in the range of 350,000 barrels a day, and which we hope to be able to fill organically and where it makes sense inorganically.

We will continue to position ourselves for that and continue to make sure that we create or that we make the best choices from a capital allocation perspective on behalf of our shareholders.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Indeed. I think that’s the opportunity that we have while. Because actually we’re in the best place to do it in the sense of a very healthy balance sheet at the moment. Gearing is healthy, as you know. I mean, we’ve talked about it before. It’s below 19% as of today. It came down this quarter. It does oscillate up and down, and that’s what we talked about. We’re very comfortable with that ability to take it up or down. You’ve seen us leaning on the balance sheet from time to time. You’ve seen us leaning on the balance sheet sometimes for distributions this quarter. We didn’t have to, but we have done so in previous quarters. We’re very comfortable with that. If you look at where our gearing has actually been, it’s actually ranged between sort of 10% and 30% over the time.

Comfortable where it is today, those moments when we have to lean on it, we can lean on it for a variety of things, whether it’s distributions that you said or inorganic. We will see debt as a result move. I would expect, of course, our gearing to our debt, net debt to go up next quarter, largely because what do I see? I see that sort of Q4 being one of those quarters where we always have some unusuals coming through. We’ve had really strong, strong performance from our upstream and integrated gas business. The performance is superb this quarter, and that’s actually helped us to be able to deliver on just bringing that net debt down. For Q4, I think everyone’s getting bored of me talking about this. We have those unusual that come through.

Those unusuals are that, you know, quite a broad range, but they add up to several billion, whether it’s, you know, the German and U.S. biofuels certificates, the emission certificates, payments that come through, the German mineral oil tax, etc. It adds up to a couple of billion of course next quarter. Beyond that, what we also see is that ability to have some of those opportunities which help push up our CapEx levels a little bit into that quarter. At the same time, we see downstream typically being that little bit weaker in Q4. The data book says it all. You can go back and look at the last couple of years and see Q4 coming through as well on that. It’s really twofold. It’s two different stories. One is chemicals and products, which is normally trading related where it’s a bit weaker into the quarter.

We have a few turnarounds which were mentioned earlier by one of your colleagues that will also hit in Q4 as well. On our marketing, marketing has been doing superbly well. Q2 and Q3 are driving season, so it is seasonality coming into Q4 where you would see it be a little bit weaker. I look forward to in Q4 making sure that our performance is good, understanding that those items will drive down some of the cash flow and looking forward to seeing what opportunities we have as well, including potentially working capital build depending on where the macro is. That links back exactly to where you were going to, which is we have the balance sheet available to actually lean on for whether it’s distributions or whether it’s to lean on for inorganic opportunities as well. Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you very much, Sinead, and thank you for the question, Michele. Let’s go to the next question, please, Luke.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Joshua Eliot Dweck Stone from UBS. Yeah, thanks and good afternoon. A couple of questions, one just following up to Ned on the fourth quarter outlook. Thanks for taking us through all those building blocks, particularly on the integrated gas. Because on an earlier question, it does sound quite conservative and yet liquefaction volumes should be up. Why would the ramp up of those volumes not help you optimize margins in the fourth quarter? Are there other things inside integrated gas we should be aware of? Can you just remind us where we are in the hedging impact there and the potential headwind that was inside these numbers this quarter? Second question on Namibia, there were some headlines earlier in the summer that you’re expecting to resume exploration drilling next year in Namibia.

Can you talk a little bit about what areas you’re thinking about targeting and maybe just more generally your willingness to add more capital to this country given what you know so far about the basin? Thanks, Josh.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you for those. I’ll take the second one and ask Sinead to address the first one on Namibia. Indeed, like we said in the past, we like the volumes we found. We were challenged by the high gas oil ratios and of course just the movability of the fluid. What we have also been doing is spending time to really understand what our appraisal program has resulted with the subsurface data points we have, not just ours, but also leaning on what others have been doing in the basin to be able to maximize our knowledge set. We continue to have appetite, of course, to invest in Namibia, but it’s going to have to be at a level where it meets our high hurdles for investment opportunities. We are very willing to invest in an appraisal well for a new horizon if we have an investable case for it.

That’s what the team is assessing at the moment and we should be in a position to be able to decide that in the coming weeks. More broadly, I would say we continue to look at those options for basins where we think we can be differentiated in the way that we are able to play in that basin, for example, in the Porter, where we can leverage our knowledge of the North Atlantic to be able to potentially create opportunities like the well we’re drilling at the moment in Sao Tome and like other wells we’re drilling as well in the Gulf of Mexico. Looking forward to continuing to see what comes out of that, Janet.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Indeed. Thank you, Josh. Back to integrated gas now. You’re absolutely right in the sense that when we talk about the normal, we’re always talking about whether we can deliver higher operational performance and then what opportunities we can find in the market as well beyond that. When I look at Q4, we’re looking at strong operational performance. We’re looking at the team doing what they’ve said they’re going to do and making sure they continue on the ramp up of LNG Canada and other assets. We’re looking at what do we see in terms of the availability of both length. Hopefully we will have some. In terms of the ARBs and what are the opportunities to be able to trade around those, what I was mentioning earlier was that we’re seeing some of it at the moment, but less in Q4 than we did in Q3.

There is that sort of noticeable, those are closing at the moment and you can talk about Brent vs. Henry Hub and all sorts of fun items there, but it is closing a little bit. You also mentioned the impact in terms of the runoff, by the way, in terms of the losses of the legacy positions that I think I positioned probably back almost a year ago that I said would run through 2025. We’re still seeing those legacy positions expire over this year. That impact is less pronounced than it was at the start of the year. That’s just some really good work from the trading team in terms of effective risk management. You will see that in Q4 as well. Looking to see what can we actually capture upside in the portfolio in terms of both net length and what’s in the market as well.

Of course, there is weakness versus downstream versus where integrated gas is. As I outlined earlier, we’re expecting to see downstream being weaker than it was in Q3 versus integrated gas where we would not see it be able to capture some of the opportunities that we have seen this quarter. We’re looking at strong operational performance as well. It’s a tale of two halves there.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks, Sinead. Thanks for the questions as well there, Josh. Luke, let’s go to the next question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Alastair Roderick Syme from Citi. Thanks. While coming back on portfolio because it seems you can get a lot of questions on this now, look, I’ve made the observation that the industry as a whole looks like it’s delevered in this cycle. I get your point about looking for opportunities in a down cycle, but I’m wondering if you think this down cycle needs to be quite deep for those opportunities to really emerge that you need. The second part of this is do you think these new positions, do you think there’ll be new positions in geographies, or do you think that ultimately Shell can add more value by deepening in existing positions?

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you, Alice. Thank you for those questions. Look, I think who knows, who knows exactly how things play out. What is clear is if I compare where we have been over the last few months to, say, one or two years ago, we are getting a lot more proposals that are interesting, though, like I said earlier, not yet meeting that high bar that we hold ourselves to. That tells you that expectations of break-even points around some of these transactions have come down from what maybe we had seen just a year, year and a half ago. How far they come down? We are, of course, looking at long-term strategic imperatives.

We see ourselves, as we look into the 2030s, we continue to see an important role for crude, and we continue to see ourselves wanting to have a portfolio that’s able to serve our customers as we do as well for LNG. What we will continue to do is look at those opportunities that create long-term value, and they need to be at a price point that is interesting enough for us. Now, exactly where we play, typically, I’d say we want to look at where we can create incremental value beyond what the current owners can do, in particular if you’re going to have to pay a premium for it. That’s why I talk about the high bar.

Partly it’s because of the price point, and partly because it is not easy to be able to justify M&A, in particular when it has to compare or where it has to compete against the alternative of buybacks. What we’re trying to do is to keep that tension in, and if it is affiliated with one of our existing positions, then there’s much more likelihood we can create incremental value out of it. In particular, now that we have really addressed some of the performance issues in the strength of our portfolio, like in deep water, like in integrated gas, like in marketing. Those areas where we believe we have a comparative advantage are firing on not all cylinders yet, but on many cylinders.

While we know we have a lot more to do, we think we can now create more value out of some of those assets that others hold than maybe what they hold. The question is whether we can get to a price point that’s attractive enough to transact. Let me ask you, Luke, then for the next question, please. Thank you for the question and answer.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Peter Lowe from Rothschild & Co, Redburn. Hi, thanks. Maybe just one more on upstream. You took FID on the HI Gas project in Nigeria in the quarter. It’s the sort of project we don’t necessarily have great visibility on from the outside. I was wondering if you could give some examples of any other projects you’re maturing at the moment that could potentially reach FID in the next 12 months or so. Thanks.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thank you for that question. I’ll say a few words, and please pitch in, Sinead, as well if you want to. HI Gas is one of those projects which will feed into Nigeria LNG, our equity interest, and there’s one or two of those behind as well that we are looking to mature to be able to grow the potential feedstock into Nigeria LNG. That, of course, builds on the Bonga North opportunity, and just even staying within that space, there is the potential one day for a Bonga South West, which would be a new FPSO in Nigeria and therefore creating an exciting opportunity for us to grow there. In places like Brazil, what we’re seeing at the moment is the opportunity to be able to develop a new hub like Gato do Mato, which we FID’d recently.

Also, given the massive license that sits in the 2P field as an example, there are opportunities there to be able to look beyond, and that’s what the team is looking at in Mero and Tupi. What can we do to be able to maximize production out of those? Those could be very interesting opportunities to tie back. There are opportunities as well that we continue to mature in the Gulf of Mexico, tiebacks to existing facilities. One specific facility we’re looking at, how we can beef up, is Appomattox. We have knowledge there, but we have capacity which we are in the process of developing. Some opportunities to be able to go after, Ursa and Mars are other opportunities we look at. You can go to places like Oman, where we continue to look to bring some FIDs through. They’re more localized FIDs.

We’re talking sub $20,000 barrels per day each one, but as you add them up, they are part of that funnel that I referred to earlier, which, when you add it all up, gets you to the million barrels plus per oil equivalent per day at those sub $35 breakevens. Peter, there are many of those opportunities that we continue to be able to bring into the portfolio and, to be honest, that create the most value for our shareholders at the end of the day. Anything you wanted to— I think that was. Thank you, Luke. Let’s go to the next question, please.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our next caller is Ryan Todd from Piper Sandler. Thanks. Maybe first, your operational execution, particularly in the upstream and integrated gas business, continues to be really impressive. If we think about it in context of the outlook that you’ve provided to the end of the decade and even beyond, you’ve laid out a plan that allows you to largely hold volumes flat to 2030. If you think about how well your assets seem to be performing and the success that you’ve had in getting more out of your existing asset base, particularly in places like the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, how does this inform your confidence in the ability to meet or maybe even exceed the plan that you’ve laid out?

Maybe one on LNG, if you think about global gas and LNG demand in the coming years, you’ve been optimistic at least over the longer term, and that demand will respond, at least at a price, to growing capacity additions. LNG demand this year out of some of the big Asian players has been a bit disappointing. How are you thinking about global demand, particularly in Asian markets, and what are some of the moving pieces that you’re watching there?

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks for that, Ryan. I’ll try to address both pretty quickly. LNG, what I would say is, of course you’re going to go through the cycles. You saw strength in Europe this year, you’re seeing weakness in Asia after quite some stock building and weather patterns. What are we looking at? We’re looking at new supply projects and what that means for the overall complex. In the latter part of the decade, we continue to see positive signals on transportation in particular. Big marine ship owners are looking more and more for LNG as a solution and, of course, trucking. We’re looking at what happens in the broader geopolitical space, Russia, how that plays vis-à-vis China and others.

We are well positioned, given the breadth of our portfolio of supply points and our multiple customer touch points, to be able to navigate that space and to weather any storms while looking at the long term to build the portfolio that we think we can continue to lead in as the premier LNG player in our sector. On the upstream look, we continue to make progress in our portfolio. As I said, I’m proud of the team, but I wouldn’t at this stage yet say that we are at the full potential of this company. We still leave money on the table and we are relentlessly going after that, whether it is in our turnarounds, whether it is in the reliability of our assets, whether it is in areas like water injection.

We have more to do and the more we can de-risk that, the less we need new molecules to be able to address the 2030 ambition. I will not at this stage sort of make a prediction as to where we get to by 2030, but what I will say is I’m very pleased with the progress we’re making across the patch to be able to deliver on that objective and to start to position ourselves for the next decade as well. Thank you for those questions. We can go to the next question, please, Luke.

Luke, Call Moderator, Shell: Our final caller today is Mark Wilson from Jefferies. Thank you. A lot of emphasis on allocating capital to the best return. I’d like to ask you about the UK North Sea business combination and your forward plans with that. Do you consider that an investment area, and obviously I combine with that expectations for fiscal changes in the UK and how strategic you see that UK North Sea portfolio. Thank you.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Yes, I’d say on the UK, firstly, excited by the Enduro JV and hope that that kicks off before end of the year. Good progress there. At the end of the day, we have been very clear when we invest in the upstream, we’re looking for predictable and progressive tax systems that allow us to be able to make sure that the investment we are making is one that we can see the returns on, and the reliability of that fiscal setup is key to us. Now, what Enduro will do is, I think, it takes the best of both, it takes the best of Equinor, the best of Shell, puts it together, has a nice development runway with the projects that are already sanctioned, but also has a great asset base to be able to go for follow-up opportunities if the conditions are right.

The conditions need to be right to attract that marginal dollar of capital. Without speculating on where the budget goes in November, we continue to be hopeful that the fiscal situation is improved, and at the end of the day, that predictability and reliability come to play so that we can make the investments that allow for indigenous production to be able to serve the needs of the UK longer term.

Sinead Gorman, CFO, Shell: Just to add on that while because the second part of that about capital allocation as well. I think as we’ve discussed previously, the whole idea of capital allocation you emphasized very clearly earlier, we have the decisions on where we put the capital, whether it’s organic opportunity, inorganic opportunities, whether we look to do share buybacks, etc. That decision criteria is key to us, the framework we use, which is really where Mark was going to at the end of his question as well. We do look at both the performance of the company in the quarter, but we also look at the macro and where it’s going to as well. Of course that’s sort of the decision criteria. When we look at the buyback versus actually putting capital to some of our assets as well.

We keep coming back to the fact that on a distribution policy perspective, 40 to 50% as you said, is sacrosanct and we want to remain within that range and that’s what we will do. Of course then we look at how do we fund it, whether it’s the free cash flow or whether we are looking to lean on the balance sheet as we’ve said. We have a large range of different capital allocation decisions as we go through, but always focused on what we’ve said. Consistently, 40 to 50% of distributions is sacrosanct and we look forward to growing the business as we can.

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell: Thanks, Sinead, and thank you Mark for that question as well. I think we’re at the end, so thank you all for your questions and for making time to join the call. In conclusion, we delivered a strong set of results despite the continued volatility we see. Our strong delivery this quarter has enabled us to announce another $3.5 billion of buybacks, and as we close out this year, we will continue to focus on performance, discipline, and simplification. Wishing everyone a pleasant end of the week. Thank you all again for joining us today.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.