Shell profits double to $10.8bn as Iran war pushes up profit margin on oil

Shell profits double to $10.8bn as Iran war pushes up profit margin on oil Energy firm to return $5bn to shareholders as climate campaigners criticise high profits

Shell has doubled its profits in the last quarter after the Middle East conflict drove up the price of oil and gas and created shortages in the global market.

Shell reported on Thursday morning that it made an adjusted profit of $10.8bn (£8.1bn) in the July-September quarter, up from $5.432bn in the third quarter of 2025. The results beat analyst expectations for a rise to $10.33bn.

The company also raised its share buyback programme – it plans to return $5bn to investors for the next three months, up from $3bn in the last quarter.

“Shell’s relentless focus on operational performance enabled very strong results in a quarter with continued severe disruption to the global energy system,” the Shell chief executive, Wael Sawan, said.

“As fossil-fuelled storms, floods, and soaring costs wreck communities, oil executives like Shell’s Wael Sawan are popping champagne on the deck of a sinking planet. We are paying with our lives and paychecks while they cash in on our misery,” said Philip Evans, a senior campaigner at Greenpeace.

Shell’s profits were also higher than in the second quarter of this year, when it made $9.836bn.

Shell told investors earlier this month that it expected the profit margins at its refineries to climb to $42 for each barrel of fuel produced in the July to September period, far above the margins of $24 a barrel in the second quarter of this year.

These margins are also significantly higher than the previous record for petroleum products of about $28 a barrel, set in the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war, due to shortages in the global market caused by severe damage to refineries in the Middle East and Russia.

Shell’s gas production has been hard hit by the Middle East crisis, which led to severe damage to one of its key gas processing facilities in the Gulf. The company’s prewar gas production of 900,000 barrels ⁠of oil ​equivalent ‌per day fell by a third as the Middle East war unfolded.

Europe’s benchmark gas price index reached an average of almost €64 per megawatt-hour in the third quarter, up from more than €48 a megawatt-hour in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the global oil price benchmark averaged $94.90 a barrel, up from $69.10 a barrel in the same quarter last year.