Oil major Shell made $9.84bn profit (£7.4bn) in the second quarter of 2026, more than double the $4.26bn it made in the same period last year. The company’s chief executive says the results show the firm “delivers through volatility”, a reference to the significant price swings oil experienced over the period.
A barrel of oil traded for as little as $58 at the start of the year, rising to $112 in April (current price = c$86), and those swings have worked in Shell’s favour. Profits from the firm’s ‘chemicals & products’ segment, which includes crude oil trading, rose from $1.9bn in Q1 ’25, to $2.9bn in the April to June.
Moreover, Shell made $4.8bn from chemicals & products between January and June 2026 compared to just $567m in the same period last year – a near tenfold increase.
Upstream oil and gas extraction brought in $3.5bn profit in Q2 2026, up from $2.4bn in the first quarter, while looking at the half year, profits from this segment rose from $4.1bn in H1 2025, to $5.9bn in 2026, a 44% increase.
Shell is actively engaged in a share buyback scheme and is looking to bring $3bn worth of shares back into its ownership by the end of Q3 2026.
The firm’s chief executive, Lebanese-Canadian Wael Sawan, who began working for the firm in 1997 as an engineer, says the “very strong results” show the company is “performing through today’s volatility”.
