Shell beat third-quarter profit forecasts on Thursday, helped by strong results from its gas division, and said it would maintain the pace of its share buyback programme at $3.5 billion over the next three months.
The oil major said adjusted earnings, its definition of net profit, fell 10% year-on-year to $5.4 billion in July to September due to lower prices. But that topped analysts' average estimate of $5.09 billion in a poll of analysts provided by the company.
The buyback pledge marks the 16th consecutive quarter when Shell will have returned at least $3 billion to shareholders via repurchasing shares.
Shell, the world's largest liquefied natural gas trader, reported quarterly cash flow from operations of $12.2 billion, down from $14.7 billion during the same quarter last year.
Profit at its integrated gas business came in at $2.14 billion, above analysts' estimate of $1.97 billion, but below last year's $2.87 billion.
Upstream unit profit of $1.8 billion also beat analysts' forecast of $1.6 billion, but were down from last year's $2.44 billion.
Brent futures averaged around $68 per barrel in the quarter, down from last year's average of around $78 per barrel in the same period, according to LSEG data and Reuters calculations.
The benchmark Dutch front-month gas contract at the TTF hub TRNLTTFMc1 averaged 33.04 euros per megawatt hour in the quarter, versus 35.6 euros per MWh in the third quarter of 2024.
Front-month gas futures NGc1 on the New York Mercantile Exchange averaged $3.07 per million British thermal units in quarter, versus $2.23 per mmBtu in the same quarter last year.
(Reuters- Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla. Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Potter)