London, March 21, 2026, 15:03 GMT
Shell’s London stock slipped 0.78% to 3,434 pence on Friday after the company announced that fixing a damaged train at its Pearl facility in Qatar would require roughly a year. The first train at Pearl remains intact, according to Shell, and its 30% stake in QatarEnergy LNG N(4)—amounting to 2.4 million tonnes per year of equity output—is unchanged.
This puts Shell in a tricky spot. The company’s exposure in Qatar weighs on it directly, yet Brent crude just closed out the week at $112.19 per barrel—levels last seen in July 2022. Even so, Shell’s stock remains close to its March 17 high of 3,486 pence for the past year.
Shell’s Pearl facility, which transforms natural gas into liquid fuels like diesel, has halted operations after Thursday’s Ras Laffan attack. The plant is designed to convert as much as 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day into 140,000 barrels of GTL (gas-to-liquids) products daily, according to the company.
Qatar’s export system just took a major hit. CEO Saad al-Kaabi of QatarEnergy said Iranian strikes wiped out 17% of the nation’s liquefied natural gas export capacity — that’s 12.8 million tonnes a year — and repairs could take up to five years. The company has now declared force majeure on some of its long-term contracts, a move that suspends deliveries when disruptions are out of a supplier’s hands. “Everybody should stay away from oil and gas facilities,” Kaabi said. Reuters
Oil supply worries haven’t let up. John Kilduff at Again Capital called the situation “the worst-case scenario.” Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank doesn’t see energy prices snapping back—“damage has been done to production,” he said. UBS’s Giovanni Staunovo argued crude is still likely to drift higher as long as Hormuz exports stay squeezed. Reuters
Other majors aren’t immune. ExxonMobil, for one, owns parts of the affected Qatari LNG trains. TotalEnergies flagged that 15% of its regional production has gone offline. Company filings indicate Shell’s Middle East oil and gas output—excluding Qatar—was roughly 307,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily in 2025, accounting for 11% of its global total.
The London market didn’t fare much better on Friday. The FTSE 100 shed 1.4%, and British energy stocks slipped 1.7%. Despite energy shares hovering near record levels, traders abruptly shifted from expecting rate cuts to bracing for a potential Bank of England hike, spooked by the latest oil shock.
Shell isn’t out of firepower yet. Back in February, the company held steady on its $3.5 billion quarterly buyback, even after fourth-quarter earnings fell short of expectations. LSEG data puts total stock repurchases near $60 billion over the past four years—$14 billion of that landed in 2025. Shell flagged another batch of buybacks for cancellation as of March 20, part of the same program.
This trade can swing abruptly. On Friday, Washington reported a 45.2 million barrel loan from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to oil companies such as Shell Trading, part of a broader emergency effort. QatarEnergy, for its part, warned that production won’t return to normal unless fighting ends—and then, only after months of repairs. Shell is left exposed on both sides: government moves could push oil lower, but if the conflict drags on, supply could stay tight.
The sector’s next readout will probably be overshadowed by those same strains. When CERAWeek lands in Houston next week, energy security and supply disruptions are front and center for executives. Geoffrey Pyatt, currently with McLarty Associates, described the situation—Gulf turmoil, Venezuela, Russia—as “an extraordinary moment” in the world of energy geopolitics. Reuters
