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Shell‘s fourth-quarter net profit of $3.3 billion missed expectations, dropping 11 per cent from a year earlier amid lower oil prices, it said on Thursday as it kept its share buyback programme steady at $3.5 billion for the next three months.
Profits at its integrated gas and marketing divisions were below expectations, while a loss at its chemicals and products unit, where Shell had flagged weak oil trading would hit its bottom line, was larger than foreseen by analysts.
The average analyst estimate in a company-provided poll for adjusted earnings, Shell’s definition of net profit, was $3.5 billion.
Shell, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas trader, reported fourth-quarter cash flow from operations of $9.44 billion, above expectations for $7.87 billion. That compares with $13.16 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
Brent futures averaged around $63 per barrel in the quarter, down from about $74 a year earlier, according to LSEG data and Reuters calculations.
The benchmark Dutch front-month gas contract at the TTF hub averaged about 30 euros per megawatt-hour in the quarter, down from around 43.3 euros a year earlier.
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