London, April 27, 2026, 12:07 BST
Shell Plc climbed roughly 1% in London Monday, energy names pacing the FTSE 100 after crude prices jumped again with Middle East peace hopes slipping away. Brent added 2.4% to $107.84. The blue-chip index showed a 0.2% gain as of 1005 GMT.
The clock’s ticking for Shell as it nears the end of a hefty share buyback. Investors, for their part, are juggling two threads: surging oil trading profits, and, from that same market shake-up, a more tangled cash outlook.
Shell is carrying out a $3.5 billion buyback, unveiled in February, with buying set to run until May 1—likely wrapping before first-quarter results depending on market conditions. Every share bought will be cancelled, the company said, cutting down the total shares outstanding.
Shell’s most recent buyback landed just after London’s market shut on Friday, according to a regulatory filing. The company picked up 1,449,248 shares for cancellation, snapping them up across venues including the London Stock Exchange, Chi-X, BATS, Euronext Amsterdam, CBOE DXE and TQEX.
Morgan Stanley & Co. International Plc snapped up 711,054 shares in sterling venues at an average of roughly £33.18 apiece, and picked up another 738,194 shares in euro venues for about €38.28 each. Trading calls under the program are being made independently by Morgan Stanley through May 1.
The buyback comes as Shell navigates a volatile first quarter. Earlier, the company trimmed its integrated gas production guidance to 880,000–920,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, pointing to the Middle East conflict’s hit on Qatari output—one number blending oil and gas.
Shell is staring at a working capital impact of $10 billion to $15 billion. That’s cash locked up in inventories, receivables, and payables, and the company pointed to wild commodity price swings for the shift in value. Oil trading, Shell added, is on track to come in well above last quarter’s performance in its chemicals and products unit.
Analysts aren’t shying away from the trading tailwind. RBC’s team, according to Reuters, flagged Shell’s working-capital shift as a marker of rare market dynamics but said the balance sheet could handle it. Over at UBS, researchers bumped up their first-quarter net income and operating cash-flow projections.
Europe’s oil majors are heading in different directions. Eni bumped its share buyback to 2.8 billion euros last week—almost double the previous level—after CFO Francesco Gattei called the Iran crisis “much more impactful” than what the market seemed to expect. BP, on the other hand, hit pause on buybacks back in February and is choosing to bring down debt instead. Reuters
There’s a chance the volatility that’s been pumping up oil prices and juicing trading revenues could also lock up cash for longer—or unwind more abruptly than traders expect. When Shell reports on May 7, investors will be watching to see if the buyback program still feels business-as-usual, or if it starts to spark tougher questions around debt, production hiccups, and what’s next for shareholder payouts.
