Shell Doubles Profits To $10B On Mideast War, You Pay At The Pump

Shell just doubled its quarterly profits to over $10 billion off the back of the Middle East conflict, and every dime of it is coming out of your wallet.

The war-driven spike in oil and gas prices has handed the world's biggest energy companies record-breaking quarters while ordinary people across Europe and America absorb higher fuel costs and inflation. Shell reported adjusted profit of $10.8 billion for July through September, up from $5.4 billion the same quarter last year, according to the Guardian. Breitbart pegs Shell's after-tax profit even higher at $12.1 billion. Either way, the number has doubled. France's TotalEnergies posted a record $8.3 billion. Spain's Repsol quadrupled its profits to $5.6 billion over the first nine months of the year.

The mechanism is simple: war disrupts supply, supply constraints drive up refining margins, and those margins flow straight to shareholders. Shell's refining margin hit $42 per barrel in Q3 — up from $24 the previous quarter and crushing the prior record of roughly $28 set during the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war, per Bloomberg cited in both outlets. Global oil benchmark prices averaged $94.90 a barrel, up from $69.10 a year ago. Europe's gas price index jumped from €48 to €64 per megawatt-hour in the same span.

And where does that money go? Shell hiked its share buyback program to $5 billion for the next three months, up from $3 billion. TotalEnergies likewise lifted payouts to shareholders. Shell CEO Wael Sawan praised the "very strong results in a quarter with continued severe disruption to the global energy system" — a frank admission that chaos is the business model.