LONDON, March 19, 2026, 13:12 GMT
- Shell shares fell 1.1% to 3,423.5 pence after Pearl GTL stopped production to assess attack damage, after earlier touching a 52-week high of 3,489 pence. 1
- Brent crude jumped as high as $119.13 a barrel after Iran hit Gulf energy facilities, even as London’s FTSE 100 slid and the energy sector rose to a record high. 2
- Shell said all staff at Pearl were safe and the fire was extinguished, but damage is still being assessed. 3
Shell Plc shares slipped in London on Thursday after the company said production at its Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar had been halted to assess damage from Iranian attacks on Ras Laffan Industrial City. The stock was down 1.1% at 3,423.5 pence, after earlier touching a 52-week high of 3,489 pence. 4
That leaves investors weighing two forces that pull in opposite directions. Higher crude and gas prices usually lift earnings for integrated oil majors, but Shell also has direct operational exposure because Pearl is wholly owned and was among the assets hit in the latest escalation. 2
Pearl can process up to 1.6 billion cubic feet per day of wellhead gas into 140,000 barrels per day of gas-to-liquids products — fuels and other liquids made from natural gas. Shell said one of the plant’s two trains was damaged, a fire was quickly put out, and there were no reported injuries. 4
The company said all staff on site were safe and Pearl was in a “safe state,” while it worked with QatarEnergy and local authorities to assess damage at the wider Ras Laffan complex. Shell also said liquefied natural gas, or LNG, production in Qatar has been shut since early March. 3
The broader market was moving the other way. Reuters reported the FTSE 100 was down 1.9% by 1020 GMT, while the energy sector rose 0.9% to a record high as oil surged; later Reuters market data showed the blue-chip index down 2.77%. Shell’s decline suggested investors were putting more weight on its plant outage than on the immediate boost from crude. 5
Brent futures were up $6.02, or 5.6%, at $113.40 a barrel by 1237 GMT after jumping as high as $119.13, close to the three-and-a-half-year peak seen on March 9. European gas prices also hit their highest in more than three years as the Gulf attacks widened. 2
That matters for Shell because the group is the world’s biggest LNG trader, and Reuters calculations show it produced about 307,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in the Middle East last year, excluding Qatar, or 11% of total output. BP and TotalEnergies also have large regional exposure, but Shell is unusual in owning Pearl outright. 6
Ryosuke Tsugaru, senior managing executive officer at Japan’s JERA, said buyers could increasingly turn away from the region if the crisis drags on. “With 90 million metric tons from the Middle East absent from the global LNG market, the longer this persists, the greater the impact,” he told Reuters. 7
The risk for Shell is that a longer outage at Pearl, or a prolonged Strait of Hormuz blockage, eats into volumes just as the company should be benefiting from higher oil and gas prices. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said petrol prices were already higher and household energy bills would rise later this year if the conflict lasts, a reminder that an energy shock can hurt demand and the wider market as well as lift producer revenues. 4
As recently as Tuesday, Shell had ended 1.7% higher in its fifth straight session of gains as oil held above $100 a barrel. Thursday’s reversal showed how quickly that trade can turn when rising prices come with damage to a company’s own assets. 8
