LONDON, June 29, 2026, 09:10 BST
- Shell was quoted up 0.45% at 2,910/2,911p in early London trade; BP was up 0.16% at 470.10/470.20p.
- Shell’s stock is about 12% below the £33.08 price used in April to frame the share-heavy ARC Resources offer.
- The $3 billion buyback is paused until July 14, the date tied to ARC’s shareholder vote.
- Shell’s planned 228 million-share ARC issue equals about 71% of the current buyback programme’s 320 million-share ceiling.
Shell Plc (LON:SHEL) rose in early London quotes on Monday, but the larger number for investors was not the morning gain. The stock was still about 12% below the £33.08 price Shell used in April to set the share portion of its planned purchase of ARC Resources (TSE:ARX). That weakens the paper leg of the offer before ARC investors vote next month.
Shell was quoted at 2,910/2,911p, up 13p or 0.45%, with volume of about 361,000 shares. BP Plc (LON:BP) was up 0.16% at 470.10/470.20p. Shell’s market value was shown at £161.36 billion, more than twice BP’s £72.72 billion.
| Early London quote | Shell (LON:SHEL) | BP (LON:BP) |
|---|---|---|
| Bid/ask | 2,910.00/2,911.00p | 470.10/470.20p |
| Change | +13.00p / +0.45% | +0.75p / +0.16% |
| Open | 2,910.00p | 471.60p |
| Market value | £161.36 bln | £72.72 bln |
| Dividend yield | 3.67% | 4.97% |
Brent crude gained after fresh U.S.-Iran strikes over the weekend, rising 0.6% to $72.44 a barrel in Monday trade, Reuters reported. The oil move gave energy shares some cover. It did not fix the deal arithmetic for Shell.
Shell agreed in April to pay ARC holders C$8.20 in cash and 0.40247 Shell shares for each ARC share. At the April 24 Shell close of £33.08 and Shell’s stated £:C$ ratio of 1.8480, that was worth C$32.80 a share. Using Monday’s 2,910p Shell bid and the same April currency ratio, the stock-price-only value falls to about C$29.84.
| ARC offer math | April deal basis | Monday share-price check | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shell share price used | £33.08 | £29.10 | -12.0% |
| Value of 0.40247 Shell share | £13.31 | £11.71 | -12.0% |
| Implied ARC value, holding April FX | C$32.80 | C$29.84 | -9.0% |
The timing is awkward for per-share returns. Shell has paused its $3 billion buyback through July 14 because of securities law requirements tied to the ARC acquisition and the Canadian shareholder vote. Shell said shares not bought during the pause would be pushed into the rest of 2026 buyback programmes, subject to board approval.
The ARC transaction has an equity value of about $13.6 billion and enterprise value of about $16.4 billion, including roughly $2.8 billion of net debt and leases. Shell said it would fund the equity value with $3.4 billion in cash and $10.2 billion in Shell shares, based on about 228 million new ordinary shares.
Those 228 million shares equal about 71% of the 320 million-share maximum in Shell’s current buyback programme. They are also about 4% of Shell’s shares in issue, using Hargreaves Lansdown’s 5.65 billion share count. At 2,910p, the planned stock issue is worth about £6.63 billion, or about 4.1% of Shell’s Monday market value.
That is the market angle: Shell is about to issue stock while its own stock-buying programme is on hold. The issue does not mean pure dilution, because Shell is buying ARC’s assets. But the gap between the share issue and the paused buyback is now easier to measure than the oil-price bounce.
The strategic case is reserve life. “Absent M&A in the near term, we expect these concerns over [production] longevity to linger,” RBC’s Biraj Borkhataria said earlier this year, according to Reuters. Bernstein’s Irene Himona called Shell’s reserve life very low, and Shell Chief Executive Wael Sawan said he was “less pleased” that the company had not yet delivered a major discovery. Reuters
ARC reported 374,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production last year. Its assets sit near Shell’s Groundbirch asset in British Columbia and Gold Creek project in Alberta. Shell said ARC’s business would be reported in its Integrated Gas division, the same business tied to LNG Canada, where Shell has a 40% stake.
Shell’s first-quarter results gave investors cash return, but less buyback firepower. The company reported $6.9 billion of profit, cut the quarterly buyback to $3 billion from $3.5 billion and raised the dividend by 5%. Chief Financial Officer Sinead Gorman said the dividend rise pointed to the “confidence we have in the long-term cash flows of the company.” Reuters
Monday is also the payment date for Shell’s first-quarter dividend. The next scheduled company update is July 30, when Shell has said it will release second-quarter results and the second-quarter interim dividend announcement at 0700 BST.
