Shell ADR Aktie

Welcome to Shell's Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Announcement. Shell, CFO, Sinead Gorman, will present the results, then host a Q&A session alongside Shell's CEO, Wael Sawan.

Welcome. Thank you for joining Shell's third quarter results presentation for 2026. This quarter, we once again demonstrated our ability to deliver strong results in a highly volatile and elevated commodity price environment. Our diverse portfolio, performance focus and trading capabilities allowed us to capture further opportunities while we continue to work hard to supplying our customers.

All of this helped us deliver some $10.8 billion of adjusted earnings and $21 billion of cash flow from operations. We could not have delivered this without the hard work and dedication from colleagues right across Shell.

Let's turn to the performance of our businesses in more detail. In upstream, we continue to deliver exceptional operational performance. In August, our assets in the Gulf of America delivered the highest monthly production in over 2 decades. In Integrate Gas, we also delivered strong results underpinned by our advantaged LNG trading and optimization capabilities. And we look forward to unlocking the full potential of the ARC Resources acquisition, which completed in September.

The acquisition strengthens our position in Canada, which is a key heartland and contributes 370,000 barrels of oil equivalent of production a day. Our marketing business performed well despite experiencing a lower margin environment. We were also pleased to see Shell lubricants recognized as the best-selling supplier for a record 20th year in a row. This is a testament to 2 decades of dedication from our team in supplying the high-quality lubricants and fluid solutions that our customers need.

Turning to chemicals and products where performance was strong. In products, record results were driven by another quarter of impressive refining performance as we achieved a utilization risk above 100%, when excluding Rhineland, which was impacted by low Rhine water levels. In this dislocated market, we are showing agility in support of keeping our customers supplied. And Chemicals was free cash flow positive for a second quarter in a row as the team continues to work hard to unlock greater value. Across the company, we have been complementing our strong operational performance with important portfolio changes through both further strengthening areas where we are competitively advantaged, whilst also high-grading wherever we see the opportunity to do so.

This was demonstrated through 3 important announcements we've recently made. First, there was a completion of the ARC Resources acquisition, which I mentioned earlier. This acquisition complements our existing footprint in Canada, strengthening our resource base for decades to come. It extends our best in basin natural gas capabilities into liquids from a top quartile low-carbon intensity producer.

Secondly, we announced last month that we have taken our final investment decision on LNG Canada Phase I. This expansion will double liquefaction capacity at the facility with Shell receiving nearly 6 million tonnes per annum of additional LNG volumes. It strengthens both our advantaged position in Canada and our global LNG portfolio.

Thirdly, we announced the acquisition of TriStar Energy, which more than doubles the number of company-owned convenience retail sites in the U.S. These announcements show how we are reallocating capital from noncore assets like Cyprus Gas, end-of-life Gulf of America assets and Jiffy Lubes, into businesses where we expect to create significant value, and we are very pleased with the progress thus far.

Moving on to our financial framework. Our cash CapEx range for 2026 is now between GBP 23 billion and GBP 25 billion, which includes some GBP 4 billion of the acquisition of ARC Resources. Since the end of last year, we have reduced net debt by GBP 6 billion with gearing at 17% at the end of Q3 or less than 3% when excluding leases. Taking a step back, I am really pleased to see that the strong performance that we have delivered has enabled us to further strengthen the balance sheet whilst completing the acquisition of ARC Resources, which added some GBP 6 billion to our net debt position.

Now turning to our shareholder distribution. Our policy of shareholder distributions of 40% to 50% of CFFO through the cycle remains sacrifice, aligned with our commitment to deliver attractive returns to our shareholders. Today, we have announced a further GBP 5 billion share buyback program, which we expect to complete by the time of our Q4 results announcement. Our progressive dividend remains 1 of our key financial priorities as can be seen by the 9% increase in our dividend per share over the last 12 months.

So to summarize, our Q3 performance demonstrates the good progress that we are making against our strategy and highlights our ability to adapt and respond in times of higher volatility and elevated macro conditions. We continue with the relentless pursuit of the transformation of the company, strengthening our portfolio and driving performance, discipline and simplification across the organization. We look forward to sharing more about the strategic progress we've made at our capital markets update, which will take place on the fourth of February, together with our Q4 2026 results. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you for joining us today.

As you just heard from Sinaed Shell delivered a very strong set of results in the third quarter with a strong operational performance in a highly volatile environment.

Now Sinead and I will be answering your questions. So please, could we just have 1 or 2 questions each so that everyone has the opportunity. And with that, can we have the first question, please, Matt? .

Our first cooler is Lydia Rainforth from Barclays. .

And it's really pleasing to see the results coming through. Two questions, if I could. The first one, just -- in terms of the portfolio, from the outside, it does look like there's been a lot of progress this year from arc to LNG Canada Phase II. And the acceleraton team also looks like they've had a busy summer. Can you put into context for us how much more confident you are in the resource base to be able to deliver growth into the next decade compared to possibly the start of the year? .

And then secondly, and a little bit linked to that. But energy security now does seem to be that dominant conversation across most countries. What do you think that means for Shell? And are there more opportunities out there how do you have to think about the portfolio mix or governments asking for more contributions. So I appreciate the very big picture questions, but your thoughts would be very much appreciated?

Let me try to touch on both of those starting maybe with the portfolio piece. Look, when we started this journey, we said portfolio strengthening was going to be a core part of what we wanted to focus on. And you've touched on building the resource base. I'd also point to the great success and good momentum that we have had in actually high-grading the portfolio, lots of moves already over the last few months. Just in the quarter, we announced, for example, the sale of the IT gas asset in the Med, in the Eastern Med, we've announced the NakikaKulom completion. And we have others, for example, the spring platform in India. .

The onshore low carbon, the 1 in the Netherlands, the sales of Total, all of that is really allowing us to high-grade the portfolio. If I shift to the resource bit, yes, no doubt. I have continuing increasing confidence. But to be fair, I always felt that we were going to make the moves at the right time as long as we found the opportunities that were going to be value accretive. So let's touch on a few of them.

LNG Canada Phase 2, really pleased, lots of effort by the team there with support from both the provincial and the federal government to get it into FID and an exciting opportunity for the future. If I look at ARC completing from the beginning of discussions to end within 6 months and being able to already have a 1 month of contribution into the Q3 results, giving us longevity, giving us advantaged low-cost, low-carbon resources that synergize with the rest of the portfolio.

We announced Bedore which is, of course, an Equinor on project that looks to FID early next year. Again, continuing to add to our overall resource base, but at the right points because this is not just about adding resources, creating advantaged resources that allow us to have the longevity. 2030, as we have said in the past, is largely derisked. If I look into 2035, we're making very good progress. And of course, we'll share a bit more of that in capital markets update.

The only other point I touched on exploration. Again, the restocking is going really well. I think the proof will be not just in 2026, but what happens in the next 2 years as we start to drill some of those wells early good signs from wells like the areas in Nagoa, you read about Tupinamba, of course, BPS operator, and we're excited by the upcoming wells in Namibia, which follow through on the earlier success this year.

So good momentum across the patch. On energy security, I would say, clearly, it has taken the priority in thinking across all the governments that I have the opportunity to meet -- and energy security can sort of be seen as almost divorced from low carbon or divorced from affordability. It's all package that comes together. What we are seeing is that given our footprint in particular, our downstream presence. We have engagements with multiple countries. And what we are seeing is our trading and supply and the infrastructure that we have, storage facilities, pipelines our very strong position in shipping has meant that we are a natural player that they come to for thought leadership, for partnership and where the opportunities arise for investment in their countries. And so we're trying to keep an eye on what that new energy system world order is going to look like and how we will play in it. But what is absolutely clear to me is that the integrated strength of Shell will come to the fore in times like this. Thanks for the questions, Lydia. Matt, let's go to the next question, please.

Our next caller is Lucas Hermann from BNP Paribas.

Thank obviously quarter operations and cash flow. So congrats. Look, 2 questions if I Mike. Firstly, on distribution, Wale, on the Q1 call, you talked about being disciplined enough not to adopt a approach to buybacks oil is trading GBP 115. The share price was around 3,400p. And Sinead you make reference to dynamic allocation and suggest that the share price whilst undervalued was no longer egregiously so. and that was at a level some 20% below where we go after that.

Of course, at the same time, you've always stated -- long stated that you've got this 40% to 50% distribution, which you see a sacrifant will be we've qualified that with the cross-cycle comment. And I can see the balance sheet improved in the past several months has been substantial. But forgive me, whilst I'm not criticizing your generosity. I'm just struggling to understand today's announcement on buyback or at least how you think about the conflicting aspects of your statements. So how do you square the circle? We're putting into balance sheet and awaiting better value opportunities, be they our own equity or other investment opportunities, not have been a more appropriate value decision.

And sorry to carry on, but as to the balance, as the balance sheet becomes more fortress like and your confidence in the business durability of cash flow build, is it not time that you reallocated between the variable and fixed components of your distributions. I presume that must have been in part of any debate that the Board will have had in yesterday's discussions. And relative to peer, your return policy continues to appear to be overly weighted more than inherently procyclical. I think Chris will say a sugar rush component i.e., the buyback. Sorry, not a criticism, but just trying to understand.

Great questions, Lucas. Thank you very much for framing it that way. Let me maybe just provide a bit of a frame, but then I want to ask Sinead to really sort of tackle the heart of your question, which is what is the thinking process to get to the EUR 5 billion. But more broadly, how do we use that thinking process as we go forward. I'd start off by saying, if you'd ask me 6 months ago, would I have thought that oil prices were going to be where they are today. No, I'll be honest with you. .

We -- I personally thought we were at a high there. And we're essentially looking at what was going to be a temporal spike. We're now seeing more and more structural stability in that higher oil price simply because we are seeing that inventory levels are being drawn down very quickly. and it's going to take quite some time to be able to refill that inventory, not to mention new inventory that countries will want to have for energy security purposes. I think importantly, when I talk about avoiding being pro-cyclical, -- it's at these high points in the cycle, not being at the top end of the range or above that.

You'll recall 6 months ago, we were at 50-plus percent of that range of the CFFO range. And what we did at that time into the 40% to 50% range. We're not trying to predict what our share price is, and it's important to recognize Sinead's earlier point, we've been investing to fundamentally improve the intrinsic value of this company through projects like LNG Canada through projects or instruments like our. So the value of the company is growing. But how we chose the 5 and that broader thinking? Maybe Sinead, do you want to share your thoughts?

No. Thank you, all, indeed. And as we've said a number of times look, you put it very clearly, the fact that when you say 40% to 50% of distributions or FFO distributed through the cycle, and that's through the cycle has been key. So thanks for giving me the opportunity just to unpack that a little bit. Probably good for me to talk about, actually, as you say, while the sort of the principles and how we think about it. So I think, first and foremost, we've said about 40 to 50 being sacrificying, but let's look at it in terms of the cycle. Really difficult to know how long a cycle is, et cetera, we know it's not in terms of the calendar year. We, of course, know that it goes across multiple years as well. So let's take the 2 bookends of that in terms of firstly, in the high point of the cycle and then let's look at the low point of the cycle. So high point of the cycle, what are we looking to do? We're trying to make sure that we have compelling distributions for our shareholders, as first and foremost key for us. But at the same time, we're looking to strengthen the balance sheet.

That means that we're likely to be towards the lower end of that range, that 40% to 50%, so closer to the 40%, like we're doing at this moment in time. If you contrast that to the second book end that I referred to, so at the low point in cycle, still looking for those compelling distributions, but of course, in that point, we're willing and able to lean on the balance sheet. And you've seen us do that. So we tend to be more at the higher end of the range or sometimes over it, you've seen us over the 50% as well.

But what's key to us on all of this is we've said 40% to 50% and of distribution of CFFO is sacrificed through the cycle. And therefore, we need to keep pace with it. So that keeping pace for it, Lucas, is absolutely key. And of course, that's what we did this time. If we hadn't have, of course, done $5 billion, we would have been at the $3 billion. So that top off of the extra 2, we would have been closer to sort of 30%, et cetera. It's much more of an art than a science, of course, but that keeping pace is very, very key to us. You did the second bit of it. And you asked a question on just about how do we split between dividend and buyback? And again, I'll go back to art and science. But what I would say on that is we're, of course, not cautious about increasing the dividend. I look back over the last 12 months, actually. And from that perspective, you see us go up 9% on the dividend as well. So we continue to view our shares as a very good opportunity to buy back. Linked to that sort of intrinsic value that I already talked about earlier.

Thanks for that, Sinead, and thank you for the question, Lucas. I think what you've heard is we are trying to be as pragmatic and avoid being dogmatic on this. while recognizing, as Sinead said, this is art more than sites. But hopefully, that gives you a perspective of how we think about that frame. Matt, let's go to the next question, please. .

Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

And congratulations on an exceptional quarter. I wanted to ask 2 questions related to 2 parts of your business. First, on the trading side, I was wondering if you could give us a bit more visibility on your tanker portfolio, how much of that you've got locked in at long-term rates and how much you're paying on spot given the extraordinary increase in freight rates we've seen in the last few months and how this is likely to impact your realizations also probably on the positive side of your trading business in the fourth quarter?

And then second, coming back to the exceptional progress towards building resources and growth for the next decade. One country where you've got major resources in Nigeria, Bonga Southwest, Sabasaba, all waiting for FID. I was just wondering how the environment there is progressing and how effectively quickly, you're progressing towards an FID there that could continue to contribute to an improved reserve replacement on your side?

Thank you very much for those questions, Michael, and your kind words. I'm going to start with the Nigeria piece and then hand over to Sinead to talk about trading and particularly the freight rates. Look, we continue to be very encouraged by what the current Nigerian government is doing to be able to establish a much more stable environment for investments. Technically, Bonga South West continues to go well. And I really do hope that by next year, if all the stars align, we should be able to be in a position to choose to take a final investment decision. You mentioned some of the other ones, Novadoros, Abazaba, others are also progressing all at pace.

And so far, I have to say I'm encouraged by what I see. -- both in terms of the quality of the resource, the stability that we're seeing above ground and the improvement in the fiscal to be able to make these investable projects for the long term. And of course, we have long-standing experience in Bonga in Nigeria. We have a very strong organization there. And we would like to be able to continue to leverage that to unlock future opportunities. So positive would be my summary of that, Michele. Sinead? Yes.

Thank you, Michele. And indeed, with respect to the freight market, so certainly unusual times. Let me take you through 3 different elements of it, if you don't mind. First of all, of course, Key is actually getting access to vessels at the moment. Second would be in terms of the cost of the freight, and then third would be how does 1 trade around it. So let me take those 3 slightly separately.

In terms of access to them, -- as you know, we have 1 of the largest sort of lease portfolios out there in the market. That's very advantageous to us in terms of being able to access vessels when we need them and access freight when we need them. That gives us the ability to move products where we need them to be or LNG or crude, but it gives us a distinct advantage there. So having those already locked in for us is key, which is what you're implying as well. Second side of things is just cost. If you're into the market at the moment or if you have looking at spot rates, apps see costs going up.

I don't think that's any surprise. And actually, we were talking about it earlier, just that route between sort of anywhere in the Middle East and China at the moment is 10x what it was from even just 12 months ago as well or in 2025 full stop. So you absolutely see that. And you see that starting to come into margins. We even see the pressure on our own side in terms of the refining margins as well.

And the third side of it is your ability to trade around freight. -- that risk management piece of things, whether it's on the risk management side or the trading side of it. We're very prudent on that side of things, but it's been quite advantage for us. So if I take those 3 access cost and risk management, number 1 and number three, it's certainly been helping us at this point in time. And of course, cost on anything which is spot is definitely going up and beginning to push down margins, whether it's on the refining side, the chemical side or even on the oil side as well. I hope that helps.

Thank you, Michele, for the questions. Matt, let's go to the next question, please.

Next is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC. .

I have 2, please. Just the first 1 on chemicals. There's been a lot of press around you shopping various chemicals assets, which know your long-term intentions in chemicals are clear. My question is more around whether now is the right time to transact. You obviously don't need to sell anything from a financial or balance sheet point of view. And when I look at Shell historically and the time I've covered it, I would say, divestment timing, upstream, refining and other has not been our strong suit.

So maybe you can talk about the trade-offs between waiting and then and transacting. And then second, just a very quick 1 and freshened on modeling. There's been a material lag in cash tax versus P&L this year. And I assume that's just a function of lags and the direction of prices and how fast things have moved. But is there anything to suggest that those 2 don't sort of utilize or normalize into 2027 in a flat macro environment?

Let me take the first 1 first and then ask Sinead to address the second one. On Chemicals, maybe just to step back to the frame that you gave. The -- our ability to be able to transact for value is what fundamentally is what we are trying to drive for, which is why when we talked about the chemicals portfolio in CMD '25 we talked about 2030 time line to avoid being in a window that we were looking to transact for the sake of strategic outcomes rather than for value. .

So while we've been very clear, and I hope both Sinead and I have been transparent throughout both for our own internal organization, of course, as we talk about this, but also externally that we do not think we are the natural owners of these chemical assets and capabilities that we will look to potentially find ways, whether it is through capital market transactions or sale of these assets to unlock value.

I think implicitly, you rightly said, you are shell in a very healthy cash position. In my mind, that does not change the strategic context that we have talked about for chemicals, but it also underlines the point you make, which is if we don't get the right deal, we don't transact. We will transact for value.

Now why do I have confidence that things are moving in the right direction. Firstly, our own self-help medicine is working. It's now 2 quarters of free cash flow positive at Monaca, which is, of course, the GBP 800 asset in that overall mix has been performing very, very well. We're building track record of performance for that asset. So I think -- that is a core part of this, and that's why we are taking the time to be able to demonstrate the quality of that asset.

Margins have improved compared to where they were over the recent years, and we see more appetite for folks to be able to come in I think the last piece is the whole reason we kept flexibility in our approach around the transaction is for exactly the point you make. If we cannot find a mid-cycle set of margin conditions between us and the buyers, then the more likely outcome could be something where we combine portfolio, you take equity interest in a minority equity interest and something else and look to be able to ride the wave until we feel it's the right time to be able to monetize the asset.

So we come at this with a value lens first and foremost and we'll look at what the opportunities in the market. We are in deep discussions. I won't comment on who and what at this stage other than to say we continue to progress those discussions and expect to do so in the coming months. Sinead?

Thanks Biraj. You are spot on in terms of the difference between what we're accruing versus what we're actually paying. What you're seeing, of course, is Q3 taxes were a higher pace than Q2 were, but you got that rolling through. It's always got a bit of delay on it. And in particular, of course, you have some phasing where places like Norway do it in -- typically towards December, et cetera. So you'll see that start to catch up as things go through. But it's just timing of price versus where the actual tax has been paid.

Thank you, Sinead, and thank you Biraj for the questions.

Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS.

Two questions, please. One, coming back to the distribution, it's good to hear your logic earlier and about the sort of cycle I think in the past, you've talked about the consistency of your buyback program being a strength for a number of quarters, and you did use the word top-up in your answer earlier. So to what extent is this decision to get to finally in sort of catch-up from cash flow you've already received or generated this year versus actually what is the signal for what could be future cash flow or future distributions looking into. And then second question on refining. You have very high utilization rates now for several quarters. It's quite impressive considering history. You've talked about great integration with trading, I think on the Gulf Coast. Are there some other factors you want to highlight there? And how should we think about implications for refinery maintenance and potentially as you look into 2027 and the turnaround scheduling?

Good. Well, let me start with refining then and maybe have you Sinead address the piece around distributions. Thank you for the question, Josh. On refining, Look, I'd start off by saying we put a challenge to our teams to rise to the occasion a couple of years ago on performance, and they have not disappointed. They have been -- this has been a long time in the works. They've been looking at a few things.

First and foremost, how do we run these assets safely. So investing in the infrastructure, making sure that we are doing the maintenance, making sure that even at these high utilization levels, taking out certain units when we have the opportunity to do so doing the proper maintenance. That's a baseline, right? That is a baseline in the way we work this.

I think secondly, the biggest single change, I think, has been the integration between our assets and our trading. -- today, you effectively have our traders sitting in the asset with single point commercial accountability for the entire value chain from feedstock purchase all the way to product distribution, responding to market signals such as, for example, today, it's more around diesel and Kero, maximizing those cuts and looking to optimize margin.

We are now at records in our diesel production. Pernis, for example, in the Netherlands, got a record just in August. Scotford in Canada got a record in Jet car production. So really getting the most out of these assets. And importantly, we are leveraging data and AI more so than we have ever done before. trying to anticipate where things are going to go wrong, intervening early and mobilizing folks more and more into that space. When we talk about performance discipline simplification, the work that the refining team, the manufacturing team has done thing has been stellar. I would say there's a lot more to do. We are not yet at where we needed to be. So there's more to still do. But having 99% utilization year-to-date, I think, speaks volumes of what the teams are looking at and how they're focusing on this. Sinead?

Sinead. Thanks, Wael. And thanks, Josh. So indeed -- so let's take it for this quarter, first of all, and let's explain and unpack some of the thinking around it. Really strong cash generation this quarter and where did that come from? It was probably driven by 3 things, mainly, I would say. So operational performance. was very strong, great contribution from our trading colleagues as well. And then thirdly, some just very risk management came through. So those 3 things today drove that beat that we're seeing that's coming through. you always hear us say that we look at cash in the quarter and then we look through the quarters.

And that's really about looking to the macro and having to look forward. As a result of that, that means you can't be dogmatic and well mentioned it earlier, you have to be quite pragmatic on it. So as we think through that, we have to think about keeping pace with that 40% to 50% distribution, which is sacrifance. And that meant, we're very comfortable topping up from GBP 3 billion to the GBP 5 billion. And you spotted my use of the word top-up indeed. And it was thoughtfully given.

So whilst I wouldn't guide towards the fourth quarter in any way, I would say what we're trying to do is always sort of dampen the effect of the cycle and to give that 40% to 50% to our shareholders with some consistency, and we're building that track record. So when you look back at it and you look at how we've moved our distribution window or returns, we've gone from a 20% to 30% distribution to a 30% to 40% then to 40% to 50% distribution.

And actually, when I look over your tenure, while what we've ended up doing is we've actually averaged 40% to 50%, so i.e., in this part throughout that whole period as well. So you can see there's some consistency there, which gives you a good feel from where we are in the cycle a frame of what we would do at the top of the cycle and what we would do at the bottom of the cycle, Josh. So I hope that's helpful.

Thanks, Sinead. And I think that point, Josh, around the consistency. I think Sinead rightly alluding to -- we're not saying consistent on an absolute number. What we're saying is consistency in the approach and consistency in the philosophy to stay within the 40% to 50%, and which means we will keep pace. .

We will keep pace to be able to stay within that range. And if it means stopping up, we will top up above the EUR 3 billion that we had over the last couple of quarters. Thank you for the questions. Matt, can we go to the next quarter, please?

Our next caller is Matt Lofting from JPMorgan. .

My congratulations on the strength of the quarter. was another very strong quarter for integrated gas despite the impact on Shell's Qatar assets. In the macro conditions of recent months, are you effectively experiencing a degree of natural business hedge insofar as disruption and lost volumes in the Middle East. It ends up directly contributing to greater market-wide price dislocation and volatility wish the rest of Shell's business is ideally positioned to monetize? And then second, I'd like to sort of come back to an extent on the comments while you made earlier around energy security.

In particular, is Shell beginning to see any signs that this year's volatility is stimulating a shift in customer behavior through rising appetite to sign up to long-term energy and LNG contracts, particularly with energy majors like Shell able to supply through diversified portfolio?

Matt, let me start with the second one, and if you want to talk about the price dislocations I would say too early, Matt, to sort of judge where the thinking that various countries will go to over the coming months. But there are some early bits and pieces we see. I think there is now a premium attributed to diverse sources of supply rather than banking on 1 supply and the trade routes to get that supply now are much more into focus. So if you're sitting in Asia, looking at what are -- what is my diverse basket of suppliers.

Looking through the trade routes and looking at the names behind that supply is becoming more and more important is what we see at the moment. I think in addition to that, I think a recognition that storage, this whole, we need to move from just in time to just in case is playing up more and more. People are talking about how do I build alternatives. How do I build more storage capacity? Where do I need more pipeline capacity.

And countries I think more and more are looking to build out their energy infrastructure, recognizing their energy strategy is underpinning their digital strategy, their national security, it's underpinning their industrial and their economic strategy. So at least in my time in this role, and I would argue in the past decade, I haven't seen as much attention to energy and energy systems, as I have seen over the last year or so.

That creates an opportunity to have good discussions, I think, around what is sensible and how does 1 start to navigate the space? And a company like Shell that plays across different energy forms that has the integrated nature of our business, I think positions us well to be able to have these dialogues. Canada is a super example of that. if you just look at our investments in Canada over the last -- just the last few months, how stitching up those different value chains can really create support a government agenda that is clear in its direction around energy for domestic and for export purposes.

I think they linked very closely while actually. So I mean where you're going to matter is specifically around how does an integrated company managed to benefit from this sort of environment. And it was exactly as you say well. So what are we seeing? Of course, we continue to see with what's happening in the Strait, the impact on particularly our integrated gas business at the moment. So in terms of both on Pearl and the inability to be able to get product to it, but also on some of the LNG there as well, which will play into Q4 as well. .

So that's not something that is just going away at any point in time. On the other side of things, what we are trying to do and what we're really focused on and the teams have been driven to is to ensure that they maximize throughput through all of the assets that we have. So we get that length.

What is unusual by Shell, of course, is that you have not only a great asset base, but you also have a range of different businesses, which are not just specifically dependent on oil price. So we have both our mobility business, which, of course, will depend on some margins, but actually has breadth beyond that.

Lubricants, of course, which unfortunately with Paradyne is being impacted at the moment. But typically, we'll be able to provide some of that hedge that comes through as well. But our upstream business is, as you say, earlier, well is actually managing to benefit and get as many volumes as possible.

One of the examples we saw, of course, was when the hurricane came through the recent 1 in the Gulf of America, we were able to still produce from a couple of our assets, and that was done through remote production at lower levels. But that's the sort of thinking that is driving our ability to be able to ensure we continue to deliver with that implicit hedge across those businesses. And not last but not least, of course, having trading sitting in the middle of it means that we're able to actually focus on what do they need, given where the market is. But regardless, yes, I mean, we'll see it play through in Q4.

We'll have hurricanes still coming through. We won't have Pearl up and running yet as we have talked about, it's really into Q1. So there will be some headwinds as well as the benefits of a truly integrated business.

And then maybe just -- I know you didn't ask this question, Matt, but just building off Sinead's point, and I think you intimated it in your question. So on Poplar, what's important to recognize is we're starting to see -- on the Par GTL side, we have partially restarted 1 of the trains. Don't expect much in terms of cash flow earnings at this stage. We're filling up the inventory there.

And to your point, on 1 of the remarkable things that the team has shown is they've been able to build essentially a land bridge across multiple countries to transport base oil that is the feedstock for our lubricants buses, the differentiated lubes that we have. and to be able to still continue to keep our customers satisfied through that. But that's an example of the resilience that the team has shown.

The second train that was impacted is continuing to be on track to be ready for start-up, of course, subject to the straight -- Strait of Hormuz opening and our ability to evaluate product that's still planned for late in Q1. And so progress there under very difficult conditions, of course. Thank you. If I can go to the other map now and ask for the next quarter, please.

Next caller is Fergus from Rothschild.

Just a couple, please, if I might. Firstly, with the Arc train is actually now closed, what operating and cash flow milestones will you be looking to over the next year or so to demonstrate that the acquisition is delivering on the returns you outlined on announcement. And how much additional value do you see LNG Canada Phase 2 unlocking beyond the original kind of guidance given now that I been taken? And then secondly, a quicker question. Could you just comment on the refining margins that you are seeing quarter-to-date and how the indicator has been performing?

Sinead you led the transaction? Do you want to say a few words and maybe also cover the refining.

Yes, absolutely. With respect to ARC, what are we seeing? It's 1 month into the portfolio. So what have we seen so far? We've seen great talent coming through really fascinating be able to take such talented individuals and put them with our teams as well to be able to understand not only what we can deliver from ARC, but also what we can deliver from some of our own assets up in Canada as well and be able to take the learnings from both sides. .

So very early days on that one Fergus, as we work through. But holding the team to a kind to be able to deliver on exactly what we had premised as we went through, looking for being able to give you a bit of an update in terms of that probably in capital market update or probably middle of the year, but we'll make sure we go into some detail there as well.

You also asked about LNG Canada Phase I -- of course, FID just recent. So really pleased on how we were able to get to that with all of the partners. Of course, a very different scenario where we were able to see much more competitive pricing from the contractors. -- and much more comfort because this is not a new plant that has been built, all of the facilities, et cetera, are there. This is about an add-on to something that is already there. And that makes it quite exciting to see how much we could actually return from that. Of course, the million tonnes, et cetera, really good options to be able to push forward at the right time when it comes through.

But let's start to build on that. Your second point, of course, was around refining margins and higher those performing. So what we did see in terms of October in terms of the integrated refining margin, we still come down a little bit relative to where it was for Q3. I do believe we could see lower realized numbers coming through this quarter, given the freight rates, which was 1 of the questions of course, earlier that came through as well. So that will start to play out. But again, early days just into the quarter and looking forward to for my answer earlier from the team, the ability to be able to maximize value from freight on our side.

And it's fair to say, we'll give a bit more detail on ARC. I think part of your question, Fergus was almost what's the upside to LNG Canada Phase II FID. We didn't bake that into our premise our thesis for the ARC acquisition, that will be upside. But we'll talk more about our value and the like when we get to capital markets update. So let's hold that until February.

Next call is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research.

While there's been a lot of portfolio changes, quite remarkable actually, the progress you've made. But there's also quite a lot of speculation about future portfolio changes I wonder if you could speak to a couple of those specifically Infinium and chemicals. But more importantly, if there were material proceeds to come in, what's your priority for the use of those proceeds? That's my first question. And my quick follow-up is for Sinead. I just wanted Sinead, if you could speak to the trend in the leases. I think at the Capital Markets Day, you had suggested that the pace of lease additions would slow, and obviously, it's continued to increase. So -- any color you can offer there? That would be great.

Doug, let me take the first one, and then Sinead will address the second one. Maybe just to step back. So what did we say in Capital Markets Day when we outlined our strategy. We said there's 3 things we're trying to do. One is we want to sustain liquids, 2 is we want to grow our integrated gas in particular, our LNG business. And three, we wanted to continue to lean into this sort of confluence of marketing and trading as we position ourselves for value creation longer term. And I think to your point, we've made progress across all of these 3.

Whether it's on the sustained liquid and potentially grow as the opportunities come through. ARC, of course, gives you an underlying amount of liquids that's going to really support us for a long, long time to come. We are really focused on competitive recovery of our existing resource base. And again, we'll update you a bit more on where that looks -- or how that looks in February.

We've touched on the example of Badenore. Michele asked earlier the question around Nigeria. So there's a lot that's coming through. but again, with a focus on value rather than volume here. That is the key thing that I've been saying my organization. We're not in the business of just adding resource for the sake of it. We want to be able to add resources in areas where we have differentiated scales where we can really create value because of our knowledge and capabilities and that are really accretive and in line with our return expectations.

What then if I move to Integrated Gas, we've talked about LNG Canada Phase 2 and our ability to grow through that. ARC, of course, underpins it, that's before we get NFE and NFS in Qatar before we get Nigeria Train 7. So that business continues to go from strength to strength. And most importantly, we continue to add dimensions for our trading and optimization teams to be able to maximize value from. And TriStar is a great example of what we talked about on the marketing trading side.

And these are areas where we will look to continue to grow. And so we are just executing the strategy that we said. But we're just beginning that execution as we've now really driven the performance that I think is an underpinning for any portfolio moves anyone needs to make. Otherwise, why would we be the natural owner of some of these resources and Chemicals, of course, I won't talk to media speculation and the like. But it goes back to the earlier question. At the heart of it, we think chemicals is a business that is great for others, but it's not -- we are not the natural owner.

So the different elements of our portfolio that sit within the chemical space, we will look to either sell or do these capital market transactions around. When it comes to what do we do with the proceeds, I won't speculate at this stage. I will say is just reinforce what Sinead talked about, 40% to 50% through the cycle, and that's through the commodity cycle, not the calendar cycle, through the cycle is sacrosanct for us.

We will always aim to keep pace, and you have seen us top up when we feel that we are starting to sort of fall below the 40%. We are not structurally going to accept to be at the 30s percent. We want to move through that cycle into the 40% plus into the 40% to 50% range. And as Sinead said, ideally be at the top end of that cycle in softer elements of the commodity cycle and towards the bottom end at high points as we see right now. And the proceeds from these investment divestments or other divestments will come onto the balance sheet, and we will then make sure that we are allocating them accordingly.

Maybe the last point I will make because I recognize our cash generation has meant we can strongly deleverage, that we can continue to invest in our business as we've announced some of the investments that we have made. And continue to distribute to our shareholders. But we're not done. We still have a lot we think we can unlock from this business, and we will continue to do that. But we will be disciplined. -- we're not constrained. I think everyone recognizes that, but we will be disciplined.

We will not allow the surplus cash to burn a hole through our pockets. That is the flow that we have seen historically in our sector and our company, and this time, we have learned our lesson, and we will really be very methodical in making sure that we will make those investments in areas where we see risk-adjusted returns that are acceptable to us because we will keep high-grading our capital allocation to make sure we create value long term. Sinead?

On this one, on the leases, Doug, you know how we use these. So leases for us are very much by creating value. It tends to be in -- typically in FPSOs linked to our freight some movement of product, whether that's on vessels or whether that's rail cars, et cetera, and some are on convenience sites. Those tend to be where the leases sit. So per your point, how -- why have they gone up versus what we said in Capital Markets Day? 2 things, really. Number one, Arc wasn't in the numbers at that time. So that's probably an acquisition that came on the books. Very happy to have those leases great ability to be able to transport those volumes when they need to be and extract value. And secondly, it's a noncash item on the other one, which is a link to freight, which is really with where the market is going. It's just the accounting treatment of those. So it brings it up this quarter, in particular, noncash, if the Strait and when the Strait begin to stabilize, we would expect it to ebb and flow with that as well. I'll keep it there. Thanks.

Thank you, Sinead. Doug, thank you very much for those questions. Matt, can we go to the next caller, please? .

Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley.

Yes. Maybe I can just ask 2 smaller modeling questions, just to sort of tick them off. wanted to follow up slightly on sort of Doug's question about sort of leases. Because this quarter, there was a big boost in leases from escalating freight rates. That makes a lot of sense. If you sign contracts that have a sort of variable component that scale with freights, then of course, the present value of all future freight payments is higher and that's capitalized on the balance sheet.

But I was wondering about because the sort of the number in billions is reasonably material. I was wondering whether when you do these calculations, is that a matter of to say, well, freight rates are up, and we now assume that for the remaining duration of the lease, the rates will stay where they currently are because that is the rate that's in front of us, and that's what we assume or a little freight rates also have forward curves. Any forward curves are heavily backward dated they will tell you that the market expects rates -- the freight rates to come down. Is the extra amount that is now capitalized in leases, assuming a sort of shorter spike in freight rates and takes into account that these forward freight rates are so heavily backdated already?

Of course, the reason why this is important is that these rates do not come down, we can we could still see the same sort of upward revision to these leases sort of in the future depending on the calculation. So I hope make my point clearly, but it's a little difficult to explain. But you probably see what I mean. I was hoping you could address that. And the other one, I also wanted to ask is about the sort of $3.4 billion derivative inflow when that reverses, if it reverses, if you can give a bit more color on that?

Super. Thanks for that, Martijn. Sinead?

My time I could go in a very long ramp to big accounting and how we have to handle it around your spot on, just the way it gets accounted for is the fact that we actually have to use the spot rate as an indicative of where it goes through the life of the tenure of the leases, which is something that I think is not just us. You've seen some of the trading houses objectives and may comment on it as well, deeply frustrating. .

But per your point, it doesn't mean it goes up and down, yes, it does. That's why you heard me say to dog in particular, this is about the accounting treatment of it, not the economic value of it. So 2 very different things. And of course, given that you have quite a large freight book, you can imagine that we use risk management and different things like that. So this is the accounting side of it. But you're spot on, and I hear your frustration and I echo it, is what I would say.

Your second 1 is on $3.4 billion of inflow and specifically, that's around derivatives, as you said, coming through. What I would say on that is a number of elements in there, but you heard me allude to the fact earlier that there were 3 things that I was really pleased with in terms of the cash generation. One was around the operational performance of the company.

Secondly, our trading business had or trading segment business, had performed and the third 1 was around effective risk management. So that comes down to the effective risk management, and that's what you're seeing on the derivatives coming through. Would there be ebbs and flows? And it absolutely. We do have margining moves -- and I would say the way we do risk management means it is something that's normal course of business for us. So you tend to see that come through, which is why I didn't call it out specifically. Thanks.

Thanks, Sinead, and thank you, Martijn. Matt, let's go to the next caller.

Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

While I've got 1 question on M&A. you were telling us not so long ago that you're spending an increasing amount of time on what's coming through your desk. What are your senses telling you right now? Obviously, during these kind of volatile commodity price periods, it's very hard to find deals. You managed to do that earlier this year. So are you still confident that this is a good time to transact?

Or are you telling your team -- you know what, there's always time. And second question or I just wanted to give you a bit of an opportunity with the benefit of hindsight were all smarter to sort of review what you've learned from the trimming of the buyback back in April relative to the top-up right now?

Christopher. A couple of good questions. Let me address those maybe on the M&A side. Look, what I'm particularly pleased -- and I've said this before, and I'll reiterate now, is the teams are looking to continue to drive value from our existing portfolio first and foremost and focus on the areas where we have competitive strength. That means that M&A is nice if it comes and recognizing we hold ourselves to a very high bar. Even if we look at 100 of these companies, it's very rare to get even 1 of them sort of screening through. And indeed, ARC met that high bar. If I'm honest with you, I don't see an obvious target at the moment that's meeting that high bar.

We, of course, will always look, by the way, and I'll never say to my team, stop looking because I think part of our job is to make sure we are creating various alternatives. What's the opportunity cost of every single dollar of capital we're spending, whether it's an exploration, whether it's a negotiated deal, organic opportunities, M&A to keep us on our toes, and make sure that we are allocating capital to that best risk-adjusted return opportunity that's out there.

So we will keep looking. Nothing that's particularly, I'd say, exciting. But who knows opportunities will emerge in this location. As I said earlier, we will be -- we are not constrained, but we will be very, very disciplined in that regard. On the -- sorry as, of course, yes...

Because I think you answered it earlier as well. Very happy to. Look, Christopher, I think it's crystal balls and hindsight. -- many things. I don't think there's many things we would look at and consider with the different viewpoints. We've been doing this for some time, and you can't always time it perfectly. I think is what you were referring to earlier as well. I think our view at the time was trying to understand how long the disruption in the Middle East was going to last.

And I think it's fair to say it's a difficult one to bet on or to decide when it would come through. We took the opportunity at that time, of course, to rebalance as well and to be able to look at both the buyback but also to move some towards the dividend at that time as well.

As well, you talked about earlier, we keep increasing the intrinsic value of the company. And if we keep doing that, we still see it as a good value to buy. I think, Christopher, you actually was of the last time, I think we bought back from 30% of the company over the last few years at very good value, and we're continuing to do that. So continue to feel that joy of the fact that we view the under-appreciation in terms of that turnaround story of this company in terms of the performance lens that's coming through, the portfolio changes that have come through. more importantly, harbor strengthening the portfolio to the future.

So I'm very much looking forward to sharing that with you at the capital markets update as well. So a good opportunity there.

Indeed, I think we don't have wisdom around where these prices are going, but what we can do is make sure that our -- we honor the frame that we have set, the 40% to 50%, and we do all we can around the areas that we can control.

So -- that -- those are the fundamentals, Christopher, and hopefully, we can keep demonstrating that with the consistency that this organization has been quarter after quarter.

Let's go next Matt to the next call.

Our next caller is James West from Melius Research.

Thanks for getting me in here towards the end. We covered a ton of ground today and then the Q&A session. And obviously, there's been a lot of moving parts really while since you took over over the last 3 years. But what are the areas that's becoming more interesting and not just I guess, probably because of the changes in government there in the back of the U.S. government, is Venezuela and the gas opportunity in that market. I know you're familiar with the market, you have some exposure. How are you thinking about that opportunity set and how that feeds into your broader global gas strategy?

James, thank you for that question. I think what we're seeing at the moment, I'll touch on Venezuela in a second is there are multiple opportunities that are playing up maybe sort of finishing the thread that we started with Christopher. M&A is 1 angle, but there's more and more opportunities for negotiated deals, whether that's potentially in Kuwait, in Lybia and in Iraq or in Venezuela. And that's been exciting to lean into. The question is what are the ones where we can truly bring value? And in a place like Venezuela, of course, he oil is what people talk about, it's not obvious to us how we can add a lot of value in that space.

But in the gas value chain, that connectivity between, in particular, offshore Venezuela, where we can put in new assets, so we're not having to inherit legacy gas assets where we can symbiotically tie those assets into our existing infrastructure on the Trinidad side of the border, where we can leverage the existing capacity in the Atlantic LNG -- all of that means we can truly create value out of those unique opportunities from positions of strength.

We will look at that. I mean, we are into LNG Canada Phase I and II is another example of that. And our opportunities in Australia to be able to keep our Queensland LNG facilities for are all that. I think we're in a world where continuing to leverage the diverse supply sources we have to be able to meet that growing demand for LNG is going to be key.

Okay. Matt, let's go the next question, please.

Our final caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

I've only got 1 question left. You've tried cash CapEx guidance by $1 billion to $23 billion to $25 million, and that's despite completing arguments actually a major project, LNG Canada too. How much of that reduction came from timing versus real capital efficiencies or lower underlying spend? And then is there any read across of that into the 20 to 22 annual CapEx framework for '27 '28, either on the upside or the downside?

Thanks, Kim. I can be relatively short on this 1 actually. So indeed, we brought it down by roughly GBP 1 billion. A large part of that is really timing and phasing with a few efficiencies built in. So it's a bit of a blend in there. In terms of the read across, I think the only thing that I would say is really Kim, we've talked about the fact that we will absorb ARC into our existing CapEx guidance. We still believe that, that is true. So looking forward to giving you a bit of an update as we come into capital markets update, which is linked to our Q4 results. So we'll be able to talk to you and unpack that in a bit more detail, but teams are doing great work at the moment in terms of both discipline and thinking of where to spend the money. So thank you.

Thank you, Kim, and thank you, Sinead, and thank you all for your questions and for joining us on today's call. In conclusion, we delivered a very strong set of financial results in this quarter, thanks to our strong operational performance in a volatile macro environment and our continuing focus on performance, discipline and simplification across all our businesses. We look forward to sharing more about the progress that we've made at our capital markets update, which will take place on February 4. We wish everyone a pleasant end of the week. Thank you again.

Welcome to Shell's Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Announcement. Shell's CEO, Wael Sawan; and CFO, Sinead Gorman, will present the results, then host a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

We will now begin the presentation.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining. Today, Sinead and I will present Shell's Second Quarter 2026 results. In Q2, Shell delivered very strong results, driven by strong operational performance across our businesses. That performance reflects our relentless focus on execution, which enabled us to provide the critical energy our customers needed when it mattered. In Integrated Gas, strong performance across our global portfolio helped to offset some of the lost LNG volumes from Qatar. Take our LNG Canada joint venture, for example. This is a greenfield project that shipped its first cargo just a year ago and it has already delivered more than 100 cargoes and achieved full capacity this quarter. In Upstream, our continued focus on performance also unlock additional production this quarter. We continue to optimize and deliver turnarounds ahead of schedule, enabling performance such as in Brazil, where we delivered another quarter of record production.

Our Pennsylvania petrochemicals complex also delivered its best performance to date, and our refineries achieved a record 102% utilization in a high-margin period. Our refineries have responded to what the market needs, shifting production towards middle distillates, like Jet fuel, capturing more value from our assets. These kinds of value-based decisions make a difference at a time when global energy flows are under pressure. And behind them sits an important structural strength, Shell's integrated model. The connectivity across our value chains creates the opportunities to optimize assets, product flows and market exposures from well to wheel. And as we remain responsive to the fast-changing conditions, we also have kept a clear focus on delivering our strategy and commitments.

Structural cost reductions are progressing well with $700 million delivered so far in 2026. Savings that are driven by changing the way we work across our organization, including operational efficiencies and the leaner fit-for-purpose corporate center and the high grading of our portfolio has now delivered savings of close to $6 billion since 2022. We also continue to access long-term growth and strengthen our portfolio. Our acquisition of ARC Resources has won overwhelming support from ARC shareholders and we're now awaiting final regulatory approval. The ARC deal accelerates our strategy by sustaining material liquids production and growing our integrated gas business, lifting our expected production growth to 2030 from around 1% in a year to some 4% compared with 2025.

We have also signed contracts to operate the offshore Loran gas field in Venezuela. And in Namibia, we continue to create optionality having drilled our most promising exploration well to date. At the same time, in upstream, we have agreed to sell our nonoperated working interest in Na Kika in the Gulf of America an asset that secured attractive value as it nears the end of its life. Taken together, this is high-grading in action, releasing value from assets where we are no longer the natural owner and reinvesting it in the next generation of competitively positioned supply. We also recently announced the divestment of Sprng Energy in India, high grading our power portfolio. And in marketing, we completed the divestment of the U.S. Jiffy Lube network and announced the divestment of our South African mobility sites as part of repositioning the portfolio around our key markets.

So while performing through today's volatility, we maintained discipline and kept up the momentum on our strategic delivery.

And with that, let me hand over to Sinead, who will provide more details on our Q2 financial performance.

Thank you, Wael. In Q2, we delivered a very strong set of results. Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $9.8 billion, and we generated over $21 billion of cash flow from operations despite the ongoing disruptions in the Middle East. Strong operational performance across our segments provided the foundation for our delivery this quarter. In addition to this, LNG trading and optimization was able to capture significant additional value compared with last quarter. And I was especially pleased to see the chemicals results this quarter with a positive free cash flow contribution. The hard work the team is putting into the transformation is starting to pay off. And combined with a more favorable margin environment this quarter's results represents the best we have seen in over 5 years, but there is much more to do.

Now turning to our financial framework. Our cash CapEx outlook of $24 billion to $26 billion for 2026 is unchanged. This includes some $4 billion for the ARC Resources acquisition and associated cash CapEx. In Q2, we reduced net debt to some $42 billion or $12 billion excluding leases. And today, we've announced $3 billion of share buybacks and which we expect to complete by our Q3 results announcement in October. In addition to this new program, we will also complete the portion of the previous buyback program that was halted due to regulatory restrictions associated with the ARC transaction.

In summary, this quarter, we performed extremely well despite continued disruptions. We made significant progress across the portfolio, and we further strengthened our balance sheet, whilst remaining focused on growing long-term value.

And with that, let me hand back to Wael to close. .

Thanks, Sinead. This was a very strong set of results. The macro was supportive, but would these results show more than anything is that Shell delivers through volatility. We continue to drive performance, discipline and simplification throughout the organization as we deliver more value with less emissions. And we are confidently progressing our strategy at pace as we continue to build a more focused, more resilient and higher return company. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you for joining us today. We hope that after watching this presentation, you've seen how Shell delivered a very strong set of results through the strength of our portfolio and the quality of our execution. Now Sinead and I will be answering your questions. So please, could we have just 1 or 2 questions each so that everyone has the opportunity.

And with that, could we take the first question, please Jake.

Our first caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC. .

The first 1 is just on the distribution front. And going back to your comments in Q1. You cut the buyback you trimmed the back, let's say, the argument you made was you wanted to be agile and tactical -- and I guess you took a view on the value of the buyback in terms of your share price. But at the same time, you have a payout ratio and that calculus on the return on the buyback is not really embedded in a 40% to 50% payout ratio. So as we look forward. Obviously, the impact of the war is maybe more pronounced than you thought at the time. But it looks like your run rate on distributions will be well below the 40% if you continue at this rate.

So just trying to understand how you're thinking about squaring those 2 things off, the payout ratio, which you've committed to and then the return on investment of the buyback. And then the second question is just on the low carbon front noticing the capital employed is obviously steadily reducing. You've announced a few more sales. You've targeted improving returns in that business. Could you say what proportion of that $15 billion capital employed you have on the books is generating acceptable returns at this point? And I'm thinking beyond the trading that goes into that segment.

Okay. Sinead, do you want to start with the first one? Maybe I'll go to the second 1 after that. .

Happy to. And thanks, Biraj, for the questions. Indeed, so first and foremost, I think it's fair to say that we have both the ability and a commitment to deliver 40% to 50% through the cycle. And we've been very clear on that throughout this is definitely not about affordability in any sense. You talked about last quarter specifically and what did we do last quarter? So I wouldn't say we trimmed, I'd say we're really balanced. So as we discussed at the time, we rebalanced between both the buyback and the dividend. So we increased the dividend at the time and we moved the buyback to $3 billion. So that allowed us to stay within that payout ratio.

We're very pragmatic on this and not dogmatic at all. We are dogmatic about the 40% to 50% through the cycle. But in terms of how we split it. We make that decision quarter-by-quarter. And we look through the quarter. We're not fixated every quarter on that. We're looking at where do we see the macro going to, what do we see in terms of how we can apply the funds, the extra free cash flow we have, whether that's to buybacks, whether that's to CapEx or whether that's to the balance sheet each quarter. And we take that decision. You've seen some of the quarters we've been higher than that, above the 50% as well. So I would say, if we come back to the fact that it is sacrificing value decision, but the 40% to 50% is the commitment that we have.

Thanks, Sinead. Biraj, to the second question, been very pleased with the momentum we have to be able to continue to work on the $45 billion of underperforming capital employed. You touched on a portion of that, which sits in low carbon. I wouldn't divorce by the way, the trading from the assets. A lot of our low carbon business models are going to be trading back models. So what you see us doing is divesting assets that don't fit into trading back capability and making sure that we are gearing all of our activities towards actually that trading back business model.

Remember, some of that capital today is sitting unproductively because we are still building up, take CCS, for example, the Holland Hydrogen 1 in Rotterdam. So this is capital that will start to show a return likely in 2027 onwards. As I've said in the past, we will expect a return on that part of the business to be north of 10% before the end of the decade, and that's what we are working on over the coming years. again, good progress. There's multiple different levers we're pulling, but we have some way to go. Thanks for the question, Biraj. Jay, can we go to the next question please.

Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS. .

I wanted to ask about LNG. I mean very strong results in [indiscernible] gas this quarter clearly quite a few moving parts, but also quite a few moving parts on the outlook for LNG. So curious as to what are you thinking if you're thinking differently about the outlook for LNG prices, there was a strong consensus around a glut appearing, but perhaps it's not fair anymore. So curious any comments on LNG. And then related to that, to your business, are you seeing any change in customer behavior for LNG and Integrated Gas in terms of perhaps customers wanting to sign up to portfolio gas rather than contracting single assets. So there any early change in behavior would be interesting. .

I'll touch a bit on the behaviors, and I don't know if you want to give a perspective, Sinead, on the outlook. Early days, Josh. I think everyone's trying to sort of rewire themselves to the new realities. Qatar will continue to be, of course, a critical part of the overall LNG mix with 20% of the volumes coming from there. We have not necessarily seen a lot of short-term action as a response to this other than in the spot market. In the term markets, you continue to see the balance of new U.S. supplies coming into the market, potentially new announcements on FIDs elsewhere. People, of course, anticipating what might happen with LNG Canada Phase II. All of that means that the market will continue to be well supplied.

If I look now long term before coming before leaving Sinead to sort of cover the short to medium term, we continue to have very strong conviction, as you saw in our LNG outlook and the future of LNG. We're talking about 65% growth in that market between now and 2050 underpinned by this continued belief that gas will be a stabilizing force in the energy system because of its flexibility, its reliability, the security that it has and the ability to be able to have the adjacencies with the likes of renewables, but also as a substitute to call or for that matter, heavy fuel oil when it comes to the marine sector. And so the underpinnings are strong. Short-term disruptions, of course, we look to manage through our trading organization. But longer term, we continue to have very deep conviction in that. But the outlook Sinead?.

Yes. I think you're talking about the market generically. And of course, when you take out some 25 million tonnes or more out of the market with what's occurred with the Strait what we've seen of what was considered to be a bit more length was expected within certainly this year, you've taken the light so that, that balance has changed. What are we seeing at the moment? We're seeing, of course, where pricing is going to, it's allowing actually some of the volumes to be redirected from where they've been going through, which is Asia back into Europe, which is much needed as we very much know coming into this winter where you've got European volumes or -- sorry, European storage volumes are very limited and actually much below where we would have expected closer to the 50% we're actually seeing that requirement very strongly here. That redirection is happening, but it does make for a tightness coming in the next quarter or so.

Our next caller is Fergus Neve from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

Two questions, please. So it was positive to see the recent success of the exploration well in Namibia. I wondered if you could comment briefly on the early differences and similarities between this discovery and the previously written off graph and the Yon-Ka wells that make this discovery more promising, as you mentioned in your opening remarks. And then secondly, just on the Chemicals result, which was strong this quarter, very positive to see that. Could you just comment on the relative split of this improvement between the self-help work you've been doing since the Singapore divestment and also the margin environment that we saw in the quarter. .

Thanks for that Fergus. I'll take the first question and ask Sinead to address the second one. On the exploration well, we were indeed pleased with the results of that well. Again, early days. But what I would say is the biggest difference is in both the reservoir and the fluid characteristics. It was 1 of the best permeability porosities that we had seen in the block, and it's opened up a new horizon for us to explore. We're now looking to expedite 2 appraisal wells to end of this year to be able to allow us to derisk some more volumes and see whether we have enough for an attractive profitable development. So more to come, I suspect, in 2027, Sinead? .

Thanks, Fergus for the question. Indeed, we see chemicals the results they showed, the team is doing an amazing job here. And of course, there's 3 things that we're always looking at. We're looking at, as you say, the margins, then we're looking at the ability to actually be competitive and control our costs and the ability to run the assets really well. Margins, you know as well as I do, how strong those have been this quarter. And of course, that has helped significantly. But the way thing is much more towards the fact of the cost takeout that we've managed and the operating capability of the assets.

So what the team did very, very well was to be able to actually ensure that those assets were up and running. So in Pennsylvania at Monaca, they managed to ensure that it actually hit record performance as well that allows us just to be able to push the product through and be able to actually take advantage of what is very strong margins as well, which gives us confidence as we go through, of course, what will happen on quarter-on-quarter. Margins will change, but it has to be supplemented by that cost and the operational performance. So well done to the team.

Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations on the very strong results. As you know, there's been a lot of debate around reserve life in the sector. And it feels like FIDs are the biggest way to kind of sort that out and build reserve life for the future. It looks like you're making tremendous progress in a lot of areas. I was wondering specifically on Bonga Southwest Zabazaba Nigeria and LNG Canada to in Canada, whether you could give us a bit of an update on when you expect those FIDs to take place. .

Michele thank you for the question. Allow me maybe for a moment to be able to sort of frame because I think there's multiple angles to the question that you asked. For the last few years, we've talked about performance discipline simplification with this value over volume focus. And I'm really proud of how far the organization has come over this period. And you can see it in the results. What we have been able to do is in essence to be able to strengthen and cement the foundations of our base free cash flow, which has been, if you look over the last few years, roughly $25 billion to $30 billion per year on a $70 real-term basis, right?

And we've also been able to extend that. That's been an area we've been very focused on. So extending that stable free cash flow. We have now fully derisked the 2030 period through multiple moves, and we've talked about them in the past. And we are well on our way towards the 2035 period and beyond. So that base, that strong foundation is very much in place. Now to your point around additional growth, we are now starting to add layers of absolute free cash flow growth. ARC, of course, once it's completed, we'll add as we reported last time, roughly $1.5 billion per year, that's additional.

LNG Canada Phase 2, provision, if we take an FID on that, we'll add the next layer in the 2030s. You asked when that's going to happen. It's likely to be before end of this year is what we are targeting along with the joint venture part they're subject, of course, to all the requisite approvals. And so those layers that we are adding are really shifting us from a free cash flow per share growth, which we have said is our North Star that is maybe more weighted towards the denominator, the buybacks to 1 that's more balanced with continued preference for buybacks and with continued absolute free cash flow growth in the numerator. And that's the exciting story that we are trying to drive.

There are multiple other projects which we are also pursuing. You touched on a couple of them. Bonga Southwest, we are hoping to be able to be in a position to FID in 2027 and Zabazaba also around 27%, 28%. And so lots of good momentum going on, and these are the projects that will continue to add those layers above that base free cash flow that I talked about. Hopefully, that allows you to sort of get a bit of a sense of where our mind is on some of these things.

Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research. .

Wael I wonder if I could hit 2 things that appear to be taken on a little bit of a life of their own. One is disposals and the other is your cost-cutting target. The disposal momentum seems to have picked up here recently, and I wonder if you could just give us a refresh on what you think that visibility looks like as you monetize perhaps underperforming assets as you've done this last couple of announcements. And then my follow-up is on the $5 billion to $7 billion cost-cutting target. You're about halfway there 3 years or 2 years early. So I'm wondering if you could frame for us what the risk is that those numbers get reset and any kind of magnitude you could put around that? .

Thank you for that, Doug. I mean I think you mean the opportunity to reset them rather than the risk, but I hear where you're going with it. Let me talk about that second point. And maybe, Sinead, if you want to touch on the divestment. On the cost-cutting targets, I think, firstly, when I stood here 3 years ago and talked about $2 billion to $3 billion structural cost reduction, it was hard work. We had to sort of try to mobilize the organization and figure out how we can get that. The flywheel started to turn. And we put the next target out there, the $5 billion to $7 billion and and indeed really pleased how all of our business leaders and all of our functional leaders have really responded to the challenge.

And the challenge, by the way, is not just a structural cost reduction challenge. It is a free cash flow enhancement challenge. That's what we're trying to drive, improve reliability, improve availability, enhance business models, turnaround underperforming businesses and become leaner, more focused as an organization. So that's been embraced. We are now halfway through that band that we talked about. I continue to be encouraged by what I see, Doug. There's more and more opportunities than maybe we had banked for. And so my my push to the team now is we need to be able to get to the top end of this range, and that's what we're working towards.

But not only that, we need to keep thinking about what comes next. What are the other ideas? How do we leverage AI in a way that allows us to unlock more value? How do we challenge whether we are running the businesses in the most efficient way not just against what the benchmarks of today are telling us, but what is going to be the next benchmark and how do we get ahead of the competition there. So this is much more of a culture journey than just a numbers game. And -- if anything, I'm energized by what I see in the organization around it. Sinead? .

Thank you, Wael and Doug indeed a great question around our divestment program. And again, what I would say with respect to that is probably a couple of years ago, we talked about to you by saying we want to be really good stewards of capital. We want to ensure that what we do is we reallocate capital. And that's what I would say we are doing across this company, whether it's around our distributions and back to shareholders or looking at where are we the rightful owners of certain assets or not. We're taking a lens asset by asset and making sure we look out, can we extract the maximum value or some should somebody else be doing that?

We're then taking those proceeds and of course, reallocating those. So what you saw us do this quarter was a number of divestments came through, some of them where they were noncore like Jiffy Lube, which whilst lubricants is an excellent business for us and very strong latches for us in particular. Jiffy Lube was not at the top end of that. So we put it into somebody else's hands, and you see that coming in. Again, in the downstream, you saw us take the tail of some of our mobility sites that's in South Africa. We've been doing that step by step, and you've heard us talk about Mexico before. So that's just normal progress for us where we're coming out of some of those.

And of course, what you saw us do in upstream as well, liquids is key for us. There are certain places where we look at can we get a fair price for the asset and who is the rightful owner. So when we look at that in the Gulf of America, we've got a great operator who will take control of this is towards end of life. It's a fair price that we get there as well. And then you look at our renewables portfolio, we've talked before about where do we have capabilities versus others and hence, the exit from spring in India as well. That allows us to take those funds and look at how do we reallocate it. And you've seen us reallocate into many areas in upstream like [indiscernible] in the past in Brazil. but particularly ARC is the one.

And we can't always time correctly the point at which we get a great acquisition that really fits us and divestments. But of course, when we did the deal for ARC, we knew that this divestment program was coming, and you can see that it more than offset in terms of the cash coming through. So that capital reallocation program is in full swing. There's much more to come on this as well as we continue to hold ourselves to a comment at a very high bar. Of course, it leaves to actually increase over time as well. Thanks, Doug.

Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

I just wanted to ask about the really remarkable operational performance in the downstream, notably the 102% refinery utilization I do take in the range of guidance for 3Q, but maybe more conceptually, how much of this high refinery utilization rate is sustainable? I mean how long can you continue to operate above 100%, just thinking about maintenance cycles, et cetera? And my second question is on the ARC deal. I see that it's now scheduled to close in the third quarter subject to remaining regulatory approval. Could you maybe give us an update on the Investment Canada approval?

You want to start with the second question?

Yes, happy to. Really short 1 on this one, Kim, Indeed, we were really thrilled with the answer that came through in terms of the shareholder vote. It's overwhelming in terms of support. We said it is in Q3, that very much depends on the last approval, which, as you say, is Investment Canada Act. We are investing heavily in Canada, and we believe that, that will be something that comes through quite readily with good discussion with the relevant authority. We can't comment on when that would be. That will be done on to their timing, but we're working it very hard with them.

Thanks Sinead. Kim, the operational performance of refining has been excellent, but I have to share that all the businesses. I mean, we have been talking about performance for a very, very long time. And I hope you see now the consistency in the delivery across all the businesses. And when you have an integrated gas, for example, Qatari volumes out and you're still getting roughly the same LNG output it just speaks to the rigor with which the organization is pursuing that performance drive.

On refining, team has done a super job. And there's a few things. Firstly, turnarounds in particular, safety-related turnarounds, we always pause and do what we need to do. So this is in no way changing turnaround time frames other than if it is not safety critical. And then, of course, we look at the market. I'd say the biggest difference we have seen came over the last year or so, in many people's actually is traders sitting behind the desk and trying to sort of guess where the market is going.

Our trading and optimization is fundamental to Shell and our business model. It is interwoven into every single 1 of our value chains and where it is not, we are pushing it further and further which is why Andrew Smith, who heads up trading and supply sits on my executive committee. So to give you a small example, at Norco in the U.S., we have moved into a model where the traders are tied at the hip with the operators, finding the right feedstock to be able to source, given the dynamics in the market at the moment. And then the product traders finding what's the best placement and reading all the price signals to be able to then manage how much do we push into jet fuel versus or at the expense of diesel and gasoline and how do we optimize for value.

And so much more of what we see at the moment is that the run rate is being determined by commercial factors driven by our trading organization in partnership with the asset. We are rolling that model out in every single 1 of our refineries and have tested it and really been pleased with what we see. And so I do continue to believe we are able to deliver performance sustainably -- and of course, it will vary quarter-by-quarter depending on where we are on the turnaround maintenance schedules, but I have high confidence in our ability to sustain and continue to improve on what we see. Thanks for the questions. Kim. Jay, let's go to the next question, please.

Our next caller is [indiscernible] from Barclays.

I have 2, please. The first 1 is on trading. I just want to follow up because we have seen significant volatility in commodity prices in July. I think earlier Sinead also mentioned the potential LNG tightness in Q3. I wonder how should we think about trading performance in Q3, please? And then my next question is on CapEx. How confident are we in the CapEx guidance this year, please, especially given the disruption in the Middle East, we have heard companies talking about higher cost for higher cost to get the rigs FPSO, I wonder what are you seeing in the market right now?

I'm going to take the first question on trading and supply and then maybe Sinead, if you want to address CapEx. So firstly, indeed, we have seen that volatility play through in the past quarter. But if I step back for a second,. If you'll have heard me over the last 15 quarters when I've had the privilege to be in these calls, what you'll have heard me say every single quarter is that volatility and uncertainty is what we see in the next quarter. We fundamentally believe that the energy system is inherently becoming more volatile. So rather than worrying about the direction of the volatility, what we are focused on is the things we can control, improving the performance of our assets so that our trading and optimization organization has the molecules.

We're driving hard to be able to make sure that the portfolio, the diversity of supply points and the health of the portfolio is 1 we would like. And of course, continuing to maintain a strong balance sheet to be able to take advantage of opportunities. And so our trading and supply as a company, we are built to be able to handle volatility. I would argue, we are the name if somebody believes in volatility in the energy system, Shell is the name to go after. I'd also argue that we are the name to be able to be the downside price protection in the energy sector, given our downstream footprint and given our ability to be able to unlock value even in downside volatility and that's the business model we have built.

And so as we look to the coming quarters, what I can tell you is the 2% to 4% ROACE that trading and supply is able to deliver continues to hold and as you would expect, we are at the top end of that range given the current volatility. And if the volatility continues into the third quarter, we expect to continue to be in a healthy part of that range. We don't, of course, guide on particular numbers quarter-for-quarter and the traders will have to depend on where the market is. But we continue to see that this trading capability, 1 that others are trying to build is a truly differentiating feature in our business case, Sinead? .

And the 1 I'll add I would have there 1 is for Q3. The biggest thing we can do is ensure that the operational performance is strong, that gives the volumes to the trading to be able to maximize value, whether there's also, if you're not, but I agree on the volatility. With respect to actually U.S. [ NASH ] around our CapEx, and I'll be confident in terms of maintaining the guidance. If you remember, we had a $20 billion to $22 billion per year guidance. And when we did the ARC transaction, we increased that to $24 billion to $26 billion. The reason for that was to cover not only the cash component of the transaction, but also to cover the ongoing CapEx for the rest of the year to ensure we maximize that value for ARC.

So our range of $24 billion to $26 billion. We are confident in our ability to be able to deliver within that range, and we continue to maintain that range at the moment. We absolutely see inflation in the system, which is what you're referring to at the moment. That varies per category. But overall, we're seeing it around that 5% to 6% but we're able to offset much of that given our scale and those framework agreements we have, but also because we have locked in many things because we saw some of this coming as well. So we have confidence in the ability to do that.

You asked specifically about rigs -- that's less of a problem for us at the moment because we had locked those in advance, but we do see indeed what you're seeing of much more pressure in the system around those as prices are higher than me.

Particularly those deepwater rigs. Thank you, Sinead.

Our next caller is Matt Lofting from JPMorgan. .

My congratulations on strong performance in far from normalized conditions. I'd like to ask you first about integrated gas, very strong numbers in the second quarter despite the impact of the Qatari assets. I wondered if you could just expand on the extent to which in these conditions, you're seeing a degree of natural hedge almost within the business in so far as the downtime or lost volume in the Middle East being mitigated by rest of the portfolio perhaps stronger margins as a result that you're able to extract through the rest of that portfolio, particularly the third-party component.

And then second, you mentioned earlier the strength of operational performance across the business in the second quarter, very evident. I wanted to ask you specifically about Brazil. I think you highlighted record production in the second quarter. We've seen several strong data points from that hub over the course of the last couple of years. Are your expectations of the midterm oil production that can be extracted from Brazil seeing some upward support. .

I'll take the second question, and Sinead leave you to the first. I mean I think on Brazil, Matt, specifically, of course, we have an enviable position there, roughly 10% of the overall production in Brazil. The old outage of big fields get bigger. Of course, applies in the context of the Tupi field, the Iracema fields, the Mero fields. And so what continues to happen is that Petrobras, a great operator, continues to look at ways to be able to optimize the facilities and how they do water management, for example, how they are able to shift across their many wells to optimize production and to be able to take advantage of the opportunity right now given where commodity prices are.

I don't want to make predictions as to the future. But what I can say is we continue to be very encouraged by what we see in the subsurface and importantly, in the way that Petrobras runs these assets, and we continue to hope we can contribute to support them in doing that.

Thank you Wael. And in terms of the integrated gas portfolio, they had an exceptional quarter, I absolutely agree. Given the challenges that they had, so not only the volatility but also the fact that they had lost volumes from the Middle East couple of things that played in whilst the loss in Qatar had its impact, and it definitely did. The focus was for us in order to be able to manage across the portfolio, as you say. So whether you call a natural hedge or not it was a portfolio management approach. So what we saw was, particularly in Nigeria, we saw more volumes coming out of Nigeria, also from Trinidad, but also as well mentioned in the video as well earlier on today, specifically around Canada.

So we saw LNG Canada come into its own we're now more than 100 cargoes out from that facility. So what we saw was we were really struggling having lost the Middle East volumes, we were able to compensate from elsewhere. On top of that, what the team did really well was almost record volumes from third party. So indeed, they went out into the market, they looked at where they could cover and in some cases, buying back some of our own cargoes that we've sold to them to be able to distribute elsewhere i.e., taking from those customers who weren't as impacted by the Middle East and being able to push them to those who were that allowed a significant buy compensation from what occurred in Qatar and beyond that, some price risk management as well, which was very thoughtfully done, given the volatility and the absolute moves we saw throughout the quarter. .

But it's been a tough struggle, lots of headwinds with the credit of the team, having been able to manage it. Thank you for the questions, Matt.

Our next caller is Mark Wilson from Jefferies.

There's been a lot of ground covered so far. So let me ask regarding the Middle East assets, yes, obviously, Qatar but also Pearl GTL. If a normalized shipping environment comes. Could you remind us on the time to get those 2 facilities back to their expected capacities, please? .

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Let me separate 3 different assets. So you have Pearl GTL Train 1 same asset, but second train pro GTL Train 2 and then Qatar LNG, which is the other asset that we have in Qatar. The LNG assets are typically easier to start up and to start the shipping out, of course, subject to terminal capacity subject to storage, subject to shipping availability and the like. The biggest thing we're watching out therefore, is just access and safe passage through the straits.

Similarly, on 1 of the trains at Pearl GTL, Train 2 -- Train 1, Train 1, where it would actually take in a matter of weeks to be able to get the facility back up and running. That's a facility that hasn't been impacted by the activities by the hostilities in the region. And so within weeks, we could start up that facility. The one that has been damaged that second train. We expect the repairs, which are now progressing to be completed and for that facility to be ready to go, again, subject to our ability to export by end of the first quarter of next year. So by end of Q1 2027 is when we could expect that facility to be back online, subject to the conditions allowing us to ship at. Hopefully, that gives you a broad sense. Thank you for the question, Mark. And let's go to the next question, please Jake.

Our next caller is Henry Tarr from Berenberg. .

I had 2. One was just on Venezuela. I think you're looking to push ahead with the Dragon project. Just any update there would be great. And then also how you're thinking about managing exposure to Venezuela. And then secondly, clearly, so far in July, it appears as though the downstream environment continues to be extremely strong. Is that the case that you're seeing that roll through for your refining and chem businesses so far through July? .

Let me start with the first one, Sinead, if you want to touch on the second one. We continue to be pleased with the progress we are making in Venezuela. You touched Henry on Dragon, which is one, of course, that we had been working on. until the OFAC license was paused. And then it has been, again, of course, approved again. So we've continued work. We hope to be able to move towards an FID decision at some point in 2027, all going well. We've also recently, of course, been granted the license for Loran Phase 1, that's a 1.7 Tcf opportunity that also could potentially tie back into the Trinidad and Tobago LNG facility, Atlantic LNG. And so the team is currently developing that opportunity.

Again, that's an opportunity, which we think we can move pretty quickly on because it leverages existing infrastructure we are building in the Manatee development which, again, will be starting up in the next 12 to 18 months. And so what you have is a nice cluster of development, material developments that we hope to be able to bring to the first -- to first gas in the coming couple of years. Sinead?

Thank you. Indeed, with respect to what are we seeing in this next quarter in Q3. The things that we always look at, of course, are margins, then the volatility and the operational performance. So those are the 3. We've talked before about needing to make sure that, that operational performance plays through, Henry. And what we did have in Q2 was very few turnarounds, particularly in our downstream business. They were very limited in those that did occur were very quickly done. You see a little bit more happening in Q3.

So what are we seeing from a margin perspective? -- specifically there. We're seeing, of course, a positive margin environment for refining in Q3, but the chemical spreads are beginning to soften. We do see that come through. And we're seeing, of course, less volatility, which means a little bit less coming in, in terms of our downstream business from the trading angle of things as well. In particular, as well, of course, from our lubricants business, it will be a little bit more challenging in this quarter because, of course, it's relying on some of the volumes coming through from Pearl which we've just discussed, which we're not expecting to see come through in the near term, so the team are having to manage very hard to find alternatives for that and doing so very successfully so far.

Our next caller is James West from Melius Research.

Two quick ones from me. One is on the -- with the ARC transaction, probably closing soon. You've got your feedstock for Phase 1 of Canada LNG. Does that change your view on the FID of Phase II or the scope of Phase II and the timing there? And then secondarily, I believe you had a discovery offshore Egypt tier in the last couple of days. I'm wondering if you could give us any kind of early indications of that.

Thanks for James. I'll touch on both quickly. On Egypt, very early days with the well has proven is that there's a working petroleum system there but too early to call as to whether we can find a way to make this a commercial discovery and the follow-up implications. And so the team will be looking through that, but very early days. So nothing to sort of report there.

On ARC, Sinead talked about where we are in the process on ARC. I would just sort of say, Phase 1, we had already underwritten through our existing acreage from Groundbirch. So we were very comfortable, and we had some spillover also into Phase II. When we took the decision on the acquisition of ARC we didn't even put Phase 2 into the base economics. That's upside if we end up taking that final investment decision. And so we will have enough gas to be able to underwrite a second phase if we so choose to take that FID and to be able to continue to create value through other ways, as ARC themselves have been doing creating a premium on on AECO and by leveraging our trading and supply organization, we hope to be able to match and improve on that as well going forward. But lots of good work there.

And upon completion of that transaction. We're really excited to welcome that ARC Resources family into Shell and really see what more we can do to unlock value. And and to really demonstrate to our shareholders. It's a big call we have made to be able to use, for example, paper for a good portion of this we recognize that we need to be able to deliver returns on it. We have already -- we see line of sight to double-digit returns. But I do expect my teams to aspire to meet mid-double-digit returns if we can and really demonstrate the value that we can create whenever we choose to use paper. And so really exciting days ahead there.

Our next call is Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen. .

You guys released your annual LNG presentation earlier but you didn't have the typical webinar that you have with it. So I was wondering if I could just get your perspectives on the LNG outlook. And specifically, it looks like your calling for perhaps a bit more of a balanced oversupplied market into the early 2030s compared to previous year that maybe the market should be balanced or undersupplied by then. So what has changed? And does that inform how you pace your investments in new LNG plants.

I'll say a couple of words and then please Sinead add if you want to as well. Indeed, we did not, at this time, add the webinar, which we typically have done, and we actually delayed the issuance of the outlook because it was in the midst of the start of facilities in the Middle East and given how many people in the Middle East were involved in the preparation of this we chose to pause and then just issue it with the webinar. But long story short, as I said earlier, the -- we reaffirmed long-term conviction about 2050 and the 65% growth. I think the biggest thing that we also wanted to point to in the LNG outlook is just how incredibly resilient the LNG market has shown itself to be. Remember, at a time, when some 20% of supplies were constrained because of the blockages in the straights, customers continue to get LNG. And so that's a key piece of the overall puzzle. So we anticipate, as per the LNG outlook around 180 million tonnes of new annual supply to be coming into the market by 2030, which, of course, continues to strengthen that market.

But on the demand side, there's significant growth that we are seeing in multiple areas. We're seeing it in areas like transportation and maybe more so than we had predicted a few years ago and we continue to see the adjacency that it plays into the power and particularly into renewables. The biggest growth we continue to see is in Southeast Asi in particular countries that already depend on gas, indigenous gas, where they are starting to mature those fields, and they need to import and leverage the existing gas infrastructure they have in their countries.

And of course, Europe continues to be a big draw on LNG coming forward. So all of that continues to play up, Jason, in our views. And -- no one can predict when the tightness is going to happen, but short-term disruptions are inevitable in any commodity market. The long-term outlook continues to be very, very solid. Is there anything, Sinead, that I missed?

No.

All right. Thanks for the question, Jason. Let's go to the next question, please. .

Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

I've got 1 question for you. Maybe you can give us a little bit of an insight into how busy your M&A team is these days, the ARC deal is about to close? Are you telling them, please don't show me any more ideas because I'm busy enough integrating ARC. Apologies, it's been a while that I spent my time working for M&A bankers. So just a bit of color on how busy you are these days, considering how many deals you must be being shown at least.

And then if I may, Sinead, 2 very quick ones out there and ask you to. Firstly, there has been a considerable lag in terms of cash tax payments versus the P&L in the first half. Do you expect any of that to persist or get recovered into the second half of 2027 and then maybe briefly again on the famous payout ratio. I hope you'll agree, see whether I'm putting words in your mouth, that 40% in a very high absolute cash flow world is the countercyclical thing to do when it comes to the full year data when we have another 2 quarters under our belt. .

Christopher, thank you for those questions. I'll start with the M&A one, and then leave Sinead to address the others. I think the first thing I've been saying to the team is, thank you for the terrific job that they have done on ARC Resources. We're not done yet. But I think the -- this was -- as I've said in the past, a deal we have been looking at for a couple of years. And when the stars aligned, we really moved. So I was really proud with how they've moved on that. Then Christopher, maybe back to what I said earlier, -- so I talked about how we had strengthened that free cash flow foundation, the base that we have, the 25 to 30 and ARC having been sort of additive and potentially LNG Canada Phase II being additive.

So I'm very comfortable with where we are on our growth trajectories at the moment. We are not constrained, but we will continue to be disciplined. We have always said we will be disciplined. We've always said we will hold ourselves to a high bar when it comes to M&A. And while, of course, we always look at multiple opportunities. What I can tell you is nothing at the moment that I have seen comes close to ARC Resources. And so that high bar will continue to play in our minds, and we'll continue to see where the opportunities emerge.

If I'm to diagnose where the market is at the moment, it's clearly more of a seller's market when it comes to oil. So very little in terms of opportunity space there. But there are pockets where it might be a buyer's market, and we've looked at those. But as I said, nothing that is meeting the threshold that ARC was at. And therefore, we continue to focus on what it is that we can do. and that's to grow the fundamental free cash flow through the levers we have. Sinead?

Well, indeed and 2 slightly different ones, as you say, Christopher, on the first one in terms of the lag in cash tax payments. Nothing too much on this one. It really is just the timing of when the mismatch between when you actually earn it and then when you pay it and just the timing with the payment debt set by government. So nothing really within our own control. it really is driven by the side of things. You typically see is a little bit higher, of course, in Q1 and Q4 versus Q2 and Q3. Of course, it shows up quite significantly when you're sitting on free cash flow this quarter of some $17 billion in 1 quarter.

So that's where you see it start to polite. And your point on payout ratio in terms of being kind of cyclical. You know I'm never going to guide on anything. But indeed, the 40% to 50% is what we said is definitely sacrificed and from our perspective, yes, we have high conviction and share buybacks, and we continue to do so. But we do focus on value, as you know, it's about value, not about affordability in this case. And you've seen the way we've acted in the past. So we're always very confident in doing our buybacks when the time is right. Thank you. .

Our final caller is from Maurizio Carulli from Quilter Cheviot.

Congratulations for the excellent results, first of all. I have 2 questions, if I may. One probably for a Wael and the other one for Sinead. For Wael is there a case for modifying in the future the design of facilities in risker countries like in the Middle East, that they become more protected from physical attacks and the more resilient to an easier and quicker restart of operations. And for Sinead, Shell has been historically one of the best, if not probably the best company in terms of thoroughness of financial reporting. And is there a case there providing a bit more of detail within the financial report think about your trading activities, particularly given that they are properly backed by assets, therefore, is something more structural rather than what would be a trading activity over financial institution.

Thank you. I'll take the first one. I love how you approach the second one. Congratulating and complementing Sinead and then going after the [ jugular ] on trading. So I will leave her to address that one. on modifying facilities, difficult one, Maurizio, I think the reality is with the emerging technology these days, there is no foolproof full protection. The biggest thing we can do from a company perspective is to continue to indeed add whatever layers of security we can add and we need to continue to diversify the sources of supply in our portfolio because as we have seen, whether it's arteries getting clogged, whether it is countries involved in in hostilities.

There is no singular way to be able to totally sort of protect these assets but we will continue to operate as we do in very close coordination with many of the countries in which we operate to be able to protect these assets to the best of our abilities. I'd say the second big piece that we are very focused on as a company is also cyber defense because physical is 1 approach. The cyber is the other one. And and we have some very, very focused efforts across the company to continue to keep up with the evolving cyber landscape and making sure that we protect our assets from an OT perspective, where we can.

And so -- that is the nature of the world we are in, and it goes back to my earlier point, we continue to see the energy system of the future being more volatile and this is why we want to continue to be the name that can capture that upside volatility and that can protect the downside, and that's what we can offer our shareholders. Sinead?

And thank you, Maurizio. I always love a compliment. So thank you very much for that. I would say we often get told that our reporting is almost 2/3 that we give too much information that makes our annual report in quite a ton to go through as well. But in all seriousness, around it, we are trying to make sure that we give you as much transparency as possible given our investors as much transparency so that they can understand fully the value of this company. What we do, of course, is for us, trading is actually much more around being able to optimize around the assets of the various businesses.

So it is not a segment in its own right. It is the other businesses that it pulls on for the volumes, et cetera. We allocate capital to those segments rather than specifically to trading as well, and that's why we report it in the manner we do. We're trying to give you a bit more information around that. We've told you as an example that we've never lost quarter lost money in any quarter in the last decade, as we said in our Capital Markets Day 2025. I'm giving you that feel as Wael talked about earlier, that in terms of the uplift to our rate of 2% to 4% in times like this where we've got a lot of volatility, trading does play out stronger and be able to utilize those volumes, and therefore, we're at the upper level of 4%.

We're looking to give you a bit more detail on our next Capital Markets event, which we're hoping will be at some point in the first half of 2027. So we'll go into a bit more detail then as well. But thanks for the question. .

Thank you, Sinead. Thank you, Maurizio, and thank you for all your questions and for joining the call. In conclusion, we delivered a very strong set of financial results in the second quarter, supported by another quarter of strong operational performance across or the businesses. We remain focused on executing our strategy on transforming our portfolio and on delivering on our key targets. We wish everyone a pleasant end of the week. And for those going on leave a well-deserved rest. Thank you, everyone.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining our Shell LNG Outlook 2026, which is actually our 10th anniversary LNG Outlook. My name is Cederic Cremers. I'm the President of Integrated Gas at Shell, and I'm joined by Tom Summers, who is our Executive Vice President for LNG Marketing and Trading.

Before we get started, I just wanted to touch on this cautionary note for a minute, which reflects the fact that we, of course, have forward-looking statements as part of this and just to recognize that they are inherently subject to uncertainty. I also want to recognize that the information that you see here was based on third-party data from consultants to which we have added Shell analysis. And also to reflect that this is an outlook on the LNG industry and market as a whole, not a specific outlook for our Shell's own LNG business. Now, I want to acknowledge the consequences that many of you are feeling as a result of the crisis in the Middle East, whether you are in the Middle East itself or whether you have family or loved ones in the Middle East or the many customers around the world that we see are impacted by the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and knowing how this is disrupting the energy that you need to fuel your daily lives.

So before we dive in, maybe just to summarize briefly that we'll be going through 3 different sections. First of all, we want to look back a little bit at the last 10 years since this is our 10th anniversary outlook. Tom will then take you through a little bit more what is happening in the market today and what do we see developing over the coming year. And then I'll come back and look a little bit more at the long-term trends. And so what are some of the factors that we see influencing both supply and demand over the next few decades.

So with that, as I promised, let's look a little bit back at the last 10 years. And I think we can certainly say that this has been a decade of LNG growth. We've seen 60% increase in the demand for LNG and now surpassing more than 400 million tonnes per annum. We've also seen some key developments. We've seen the U.S. emerge as the largest exporter of LNG in this time period. And on the flip side, we've seen China actually emerge as the largest importer. We've also seen Europe, in particular, increase its share of LNG in the gas market and it's been replacing Russian pipeline imports by LNG during that decade.

And perhaps the most notable development in terms of magnitude that you also see on this slide has been the increase in LNG fuel ships that we see in the market. Actually, a tenfold increase over this decade from just about 80 vessels to now more than 800. What you see in the bottom of this slide is something that I think has also been very notable over the last decade is that we've actually had 3 large shocks, whether it was COVID first, then the start of the war in the Ukraine and now the crisis in the Middle East that have all tested the resilience of the global LNG market. But I think it's also shown the strength of the LNG market in terms of how it has responded to those. And I think also you will see later from Tom how the market has actually learned from some of these crises and increased its resilience as it's moved forward.

Lastly, I think if you look over on the right-hand side of this slide, you'll see the prediction that we made about 10 years ago on the basis of that industry data of where the market might be in 2025. And despite these large shocks, you see that those long-term trends still proved to be true in terms of where the market was moving from an overall macro perspective.

So a little bit more. Also, if you look at the last decade and think about the role that LNG plays, we see that over the last decade that gas has certainly grown faster than oil and coal. And then within gas, we've seen that, in particular, LNG has been the fastest-growing factor. In this LNG outlook, for the first time, we've taken out the view all the way to 2050. And we see that those same trends still hold. If you then look at where, in particular, do we see that increase in gas and LNG demand, from a geographic perspective, it's going to be primarily in South and Southeast Asia. And then in terms of the sectors where we see, of course, in power, but also importantly, as we've shown in previous outlooks in the industry demand as well as that for transport, whether that be marine or road.

Altogether, if you take the middle of the range of the scenarios of demand outlook that we see, we expect about a 65% increase in LNG demand between now and 2050, taking the market to around 700 million tonnes per annum. So this is really a story of Asia growth plus energy security driving the growth of the LNG market in the years ahead.

With that, we now want to go to the second section. And Tom, I'll hand over to you to look a little bit more at what's happening in the market today.

Thanks very much, Cederic, and great to be joining you here today. We'll start with taking a deeper look at the impact of the Middle East crisis. And firstly, we'll look at the breadth and depth of the impact here far beyond just that of energy. We've seen this being the most substantive and material crisis in terms of energy supply disruptions when we compare against historical shocks that you'll see on the left-hand side of this chart. But it's also gone far wider than that. And on the right-hand side here, you'll see the impact on global trade across many, many different segments of our economy from metals and technology, fertilizer, petrochemicals and, of course, into core energies. The percentages that you see in the bars here are representing the share of seaborne trade that moves through the Strait of Hormuz relative to others. And so we've had things like diesel around 10%, but up to close to 50% with products such as sulfur and of course, some compounding effect with many of these together on economies around the world.

I'll dive in here and now look a little bit at what that's meant for LNG. So we'll start with looking at 2026 LNG supply expectations and how these have been reset by the crisis in the Middle East. We started the year in January and February with strong year-on-year growth compared to 2025, with much of that coming from the U.S. and from Canada in terms of driving new volumes into the market. But as the crisis took place through March and beyond, you can see there a net deficit in the year-on-year change of supplies coming into the market in 2026.

Now that change has not come unanswered, and we've seen many supplier responses through these last few months. We've seen North American exports grow and maximizing their outputs from existing facilities. We've seen the same across many legacy assets in the world, where there's been strong focus on reliability and full use of capacity. Moving volumes from the Atlantic Basin to the Pacific Basin has been a key theme we've observed so far during the crisis, and I'll talk a bit more about that later. But just as importantly has been a deferral of maintenance during this period with suppliers taking the signals from the market in terms of making available volumes today when they're most needed.

Now when we think about what we had anticipated in 2026, pre-crisis, we thought we'd see an increase in global LNG supply of just shy of 10% year-on-year. So far, that reduction in supply from the Middle East will mean that we're likely to leave this year around balanced to 2025 if we saw an early resumption in the third quarter of this year. And the right-hand side of the chart you can see there is, should this continue out through to the end of the year, then this could be a year of contraction of supply in the market. Many factors are known and ones we need to continue to monitor closely.

Now here, we'll look at the demand side and the diversity that has allowed for a resilient rebalancing in the market. Again, in January and February, we saw strong imports in Asia and Europe relative to the prior year. But since March, Asia has borne the brunt of the reductions that we've seen from the crisis in the Middle East. Europe also has been flat compared to last year, which is going to mean it's -- we'll have to draw on more supplies during the summer to meet its storage targets as it approaches winter later in the year.

Demand side responses have included drawdowns on storage, not just in Europe, but also in China, Korea and Japan. We've seen fuel switching in some markets where we've been moving into other liquids into coal and more into power, but of course, also demand curtailment in terms of drawing back on energy consumption during times of elevated prices. And finally, where buyers have had to bring more LNG to replace those supplies lost, we have seen a continued spot buying from the market. But it's important with the spot pricing to put it in context for the LNG market, which you can see from the right-hand side.

Spot makes up about 25% to 30% of the overall pricing exposure for the industry. Almost half of the market's LNG continues to be priced against oil. And whilst that has stepped up due to the Middle East crisis as well, the impact has not yet been as significant as we've seen in previous periods. And then the remainder of the LNG is linked to North American gas pricing. And we've seen the continued growth in U.S. LNG exports with LNG linked to Henry Hub prices in the U.S. So whilst LNG spot prices have increased, you can see that red line on the chart, the impact on the overall segment for LNG has not been as extreme.

So we talked a bit about supply and the demand side, and we'll look here at the logistics chain in the middle, which is our freight. So during the ramp-up in diversions of LNG from the Atlantic Basin to the Pacific Basin, we've seen historical changes compared to the last 5 years. But what's been different this time compared to that of Russia-Ukraine crisis is that the price response on freight rates has been more muted than we had previously experienced. And there's been a couple of reasons for this.

First, there's been some vessels available on the short term to participants in the market because the Middle East suppliers have not been moving the cargoes. But I think more importantly, we've seen a continued growth in the newbuild deliveries to market, as you can see from the right-hand side, reaching historical records this year. And so far, over 40 vessels delivered, but we expect it to be close to 120 new ships coming to the market by the end of this year. And this availability and resilience in the freight market has helped support the flexibility that LNG has needed to move cargoes between the basins to our customers in Asia.

Now we'll take a quick look a bit closer at those spot prices, and this is a look back over the period since 2020. And you will have heard Cederic talk about the 3 market shocks we have experienced during this period and that the industry has learned much from each of those events in terms of how it has responded for the ones that follow. So first of all, in the early 2020s, we saw the COVID pandemic. And during this time, we observed the market using the supply side corrections for U.S. exports to be curtailed. Into the Russia-Ukraine war, we have experienced a significant price shock as the European market sought to rebalance the flows that were moved from pipeline and bringing LNG instead.

We saw the need for a very rapid build-out of LNG import infrastructure, particularly in Northwest Europe. And that has set Europe well to work its way through this crisis we've now been experiencing. In particular, a very rapid build-out of FSRU vessels to import LNG into Northern Europe has enabled the market to adapt and become more resilient than it has in the past. The other thing of note during this period, of course, has been the continued supply growth that we have experienced. And the market has more LNG available today than it had in the '22, '23 period.

And finally, our customers and suppliers and all market participants have actively built more flexibility in their portfolios, being able to respond and adapt as they work their way through their responses to the market conditions that they faced. So if we look at the changes in the market in 2025 on the left and then the changes year-to-date in 2026, you can see some of the key messages that have been shared earlier. Firstly, that growth in supplies from North America, the U.S., Canada and then in third is the UAE exports. And that's been the key driving factor during '25 as well as into 2026. On the import side, in '25, we saw North Europe and Southern Europe stepping up to import more LNG than in the prior year as well as Egypt, which is responding to ever-growing demand requirements in the country.

I'll talk in a bit about the responses that we've seen from China. But you can see there more than 10 million tonnes down year-on-year as China is responding and balancing in different ways. Now year-to-date 2026, of course, big drops in changes from Qatar as well as in the UAE as the market continues to expand in North America. From an imports perspective, we are so far through the year relatively balanced with trade flows, but we've seen a slight uptick in Egypt with Europe remaining relatively flat and China down slightly compared to last year.

Now let's spend a bit of time to look at what's happened in Europe. You can see changes from 2024 to 2025. And here, LNG has stepped up to reach record levels of around 125 million tonnes of imports, which has been replacing lost Russian pipeline gas as the contracts have expired or flows through Ukraine, ending a relationship that's lasted since the early 1970s. Now Europe was well positioned for gas inventories during 2025, but there's been a sharper drawdown on inventories during the prior winter. And as you can see from the dotted blue line, the trend for this year is running towards the bottom of the 5-year range. That's going to be an important factor for the market to continue to watch as it rebuilds through the summer period.

And as Cederic mentioned earlier, one of the key themes we've seen over the last 10 years has been the growth in U.S. LNG exports. You can see from the red line here that share and percentage of European market for U.S. LNG increasing to around 25% this year. If we put that the other way around, about 70% of U.S. exports have found their way to European markets, marking a really important trade route for LNG that has evolved over the last few years.

Now I mentioned China. And here, you can see the Chinese gas balances year-on-year from 2024 to '25, and the theme has continued into the beginning of this year. We've seen China's market step up in domestic production as well as pipeline imports. Power of Siberia 1 has been reaching its 5-year plateau and domestic production has taken the lion's share of increases. These 2 have squeezed out LNG slightly over the last year, but it's important to remember the trajectory over the last 5 years and LNG now being one of the largest markets into China, as Cederic mentioned.

Now China's market has grown substantially and over 100 bcm of gas has made its way into the growth funnel for China over this last 5 years. That's equivalent to the markets of Germany and Spain put together. And on the right-hand side there, you can see that change over time for domestic production, pipeline imports and LNG imports. And one of the things we've observed so far this year is that there has been a course correction in terms of the year-to-date for China compared to what we had expected this year. And that's largely driven by China's growing role as a balancer for the global markets as it pulls more on domestic and pipeline in terms of reducing LNG reliance.

Now finally here, we'll have a quick look at how the geopolitical crisis has delayed the forecasts of record supply growth. And you can see through the chart here how we forecast in February compared to the current range of changes in supply and what that's meant for anticipated changes in demand. And as you'd expect, that drop in Middle Eastern production from February to the current has been the largest driver in the supply changes this year. But also important to note that the changes in demand have been seen predominantly in Asia, but also there in Europe as we adjust our views on how European storages will fill through the remainder of this year.

We've talked about these uncertainties in the market in last year's LNG outlook, and these remain key for this year. Geopolitical and shipping security are key. Demand response and affordability stress remains important. And as we look into the next few years ahead, LNG project start-up timing will continue to be an important factor for the industry to watch.

And with this, I'll hand back to Cederic, who will take us through looking at the market ahead. Cederic?

Thanks, Tom. And after Tom has just taken us through effectively what we see happening in the market today, particularly with one of the largest crisis we've ever seen in the energy industry. But I think importantly, the takeaway from Tom's message as well is effectively how the resilience that has been built into the LNG market and the flexibility there as well to respond to these kind of crisis. So now we want to draw you back a little bit to some of the more longer-term kind of structural drivers that we see. And as I mentioned, kind of looking out over the next 2 decades about what are those key drivers, both looking at the supply as well as the demand side of the industry.

So first of all, let's have a little bit of a look at supply. And this is the next 10-year look in terms of the supply growth. And what you see on the left-hand side is that, of course, coming out of 2025, we've seen a record number of FIDs in the LNG supply side, particularly dominated by the U.S., and we see that trend already continuing into 2026. On the right-hand side of this chart, you see basically where we expect the supply to be, and that stacked up against the range of demand outlooks that we see in the next 10 years.

Now you see that, that has shifted a little bit to the right because of some of the damage that we've seen from the current crisis in the Middle East. And as Tom said, there's still some uncertainty around that as far as future projects start-up and ramp-up goes. But I do want to draw your eye to the kind of the hashed section that you see there. That's those -- when the supply from new projects is going to come on. And you'd see that, that has increased and it's actually going to be around 200 million tonnes per annum as we get to the start of the next decade. And also importantly to note that, that is actually 70 million tonnes more than what it was last year, which is represented by the dash line that you see across there.

So certainly, I do expect that as we get towards the end of this decade or early next decade, that we are going to have periods of time when supply is going to outpace demand. But as you'll see later in this pack, I also think that this additional supply is absolutely critical for the health of the market and provides an important signal of confidence to customers in terms of the commitment and investment that they make in for LNG as well.

So just to zoom in a little bit more into North America and the U.S., where the supply has really become a major force into the market. And the key thing I want to take you away here is not just the size, but it's actually the flexibility that the market provides. It's already the #1 market, as I mentioned earlier, but also the fastest growing in the years ahead. You see there, for example, the number of cargoes and how that will increase in the years ahead. But more than the number, even more important is that actually these cargoes are destination flexible. So they can be going to different places around the world. You then see the number of offtakers, which has grown -- is expected to grow even more in the years ahead as well to represent those different places that are going to be looking for U.S. LNG and where the product would go.

Maybe more specifically to that, we do expect as we move into the 2030s that the total supply of U.S. LNG will actually be more than the demand of the Atlantic Basin. So what does that mean? That means that these cargoes will have to be moving further east in order to find markets and to find the customers that need the LNG, which will also have an impact in the years ahead of the amount of shipping that happens in our industry. And then lastly, something to call out is that we -- what you see at the bottom of this slide is the share of the U.S. gas -- feed gas that goes into LNG and a share of the total North American gas market, which does mean that I think we will see a stronger relationship perhaps in future between global LNG prices and gas prices in North America.

So as we go to demand, let's have a little bit of a look at that in terms of what that means and also the certainty and the confidence that it gives to buyers, as I mentioned earlier. If we look back in the last few years, you see that the additional supply that has been coming on has been mainly going to Europe, replacing Russian pipeline supply, as Tom talked about earlier. This means that prices have gone up there and then they've pulled away the LNG that perhaps otherwise would have been going to Asia.

Now what we see in the years ahead, you see that increase in supply that is going to be coming and really the market confidence that, that gives. I think what we see happening here is that Asia is going to be coming back into the market on top of that investment confidence that it provides the additional supply as well as the improved affordability, but on top of that, some of the structural drivers for demand growth that we see in Asia as well. First of all, of course, economic growth that we see driven on population growth as well as increasing in kind of urbanization and wealth growth in Asia, but also some of the emerging sectors such as data centers and still marine that we see looking for more LNG. And lastly, also a key driver that we see, which is the call for energy security and particularly diversification of energy supply as a key factor driving energy security.

Let's dive a little bit more into some of these key factors, both by geography and then segments for LNG demand growth over the next few decades. I want to touch here first on South and Southeast Asia. So these are countries such as Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. And what we see in all of these countries that they are predicted to have strong economic growth in the years ahead, more than 5% in the cases. What you see on top of that economic growth is that we see an increase in urbanization. So basically more people moving to cities and cities in Asia that tend to be more densely populated than those in, for example, Europe or North America. We also see more people moving into the middle class, which means an increase in demand for power or for cooking or even for cooling, which are all key trends also driving the increase in gas demand in these countries.

Now critical also here is what you see in the middle of the slide. So you see the line showing the increase in gas demand in these markets in the head. But also what you see when you look at the bars at the bottom is that while some of these markets have traditionally relied on domestic gas production for their gas needs, you see that those are going to be declining in the years ahead as we see natural decline from the fields. And so what we really see is that, that supply gap in between is actually growing from both sides there and that LNG will be playing the critical role of meeting that supply -- that demand gap there.

Lastly, over on the right-hand side, you see the kind of the infrastructure that's going to be needed to import this LNG in those Asian markets. And whilst you see that there is enough capacity up to 2030, you see that there will be more capacity needed to satisfy that demand growth in the years ahead. And so an important signal, I think, as well that the supply and the improved affordability will be able to catalyze that growth in regas infrastructure as well, also recognizing, of course, that the time lines from an investment decision to starting a regas project are often shorter than those of supply projects.

We've talked a little bit about some of these key growth markets, but I also want to touch on the role that we still see that LNG will play a critical role actually in some of the transitioning markets. And I want to touch briefly on Europe and on Japan. What you see on the left-hand side here is the progressive updates year-on-year on European gas demand. And what you see is that actually each year has been revised upwards or to the right, as you can see here in this chart and also that up to 2030 or possibly beyond, we expect gas demand to now in Europe to remain roughly flat. That update and increase in gas demand has come from what we see across Europe, which is a slower pace of energy transition than perhaps expected. And whilst great gains and faster gains perhaps are being made in solar, we see vectors such as wind, hydrogen, CCS and heat pumps actually falling short of the ambitions that the continent originally had.

And then on the right-hand side, you see why LNG is going to still play a critical role. If you look at the left-hand side, total demand growth -- sorry, demand decrease for gas, you might think that, that means less of a market for LNG. But actually, we see that over the decades ahead, that LNG will continue to play a critical role in satisfying Europe's demand, primarily because we see that drop in domestic demand in Europe continuing to decrease as we move forward in the next few years and in the next decades, actually, in fact.

Let's also have a brief look at Japan, where METI has recently come out with its seventh strategic energy plan. And they've looked at multiple scenarios about how energy demand may develop in the decades ahead. But actually, interestingly, what we see is that in each of these scenarios, it calls for more LNG demand in the years ahead. It's really driven by what you see in the middle of this slide, which is that they're now predicting an increase in power demand in Japan, driven on the back of increased demand from data centers in particular.

Now the outlook for nuclear is remaining roughly stable compared to previous energy plans. But in particular, this increase in power demand, they don't expect that it can be met with an increase in renewables only, and therefore, that gas and in particular, LNG will have to step in to fill that gap and continue to provide energy security to customers in Japan. And then on the right-hand side of this chart, you see that key buyers in Japan are already responding to this with a large increase in the number of long-term contracts that are being signed, certainly when we compare it to some of the recent years.

So I just talked a little bit about data centers and use Japan as an example, but I also want to come back and touch a little bit on the marine sector, which we still see as one of the critical growth sectors for the years ahead. As you see here, we already have 900 operational LNG fuel vessels on the water today and over 700 LNG fueled vessels in the orderbook. If you add that all together, that's actually an increase of 200 compared to what we had expected a year ago. We see that increase actually across all the different sectors of vessels, but probably most critical in the container vessels and in vehicle carriers. And then over on the right-hand side, you see what that translates to in terms of increase in LNG demand. And even if we only take a year like 2035, we see that it would result in a sixfold increase in LNG going to LNG vessels, which is by 2035 means that this market would be roughly the same size as the total LNG import to India today.

So lastly, I want to talk a little bit around how we continue to improve the sustainability of the LNG industry. Today, LNG is already providing a lower-carbon alternative to customers, certainly when compared to alternatives like oil or coal. In addition, LNG and gas is helping as a complement to build out the penetration of renewables in many markets around the world. But it's important that as an industry, we continue to also develop ways to reduce the carbon intensity of the whole value chain, whether that's through reducing methane intensity or other ways to reduce the carbon intensity such as CCS. And we're even seeing already the first technologies being deployed towards seeing how we can also reduce methane slippage from the transport sector of the value chain.

And lastly, also providing the pathways to also incorporate in future low-carbon -- lower-carbon feedstocks as well. And in this case, in particular, how LNG can provide a drop-in alternative of bio-LNG, something where we already see the green shoots today in the transport sector, whether that be in trucking or in marine.

So with that, Tom, let me hand back over to you and maybe take us through in a summary of how this all comes together for our LNG outlook.

Thanks, Cederic. So before we end the presentation, we'll come back to our chart comparing the market today and out to 2050. What you heard from Cederic earlier is that we have a significant amount of supply coming to the market under construction today, around 200 million tonnes that will be delivered by the middle of next decade. Now out to 2050 compared to today, we see a growth of around 65%, and that will take us to a median of around 700 million tonnes by 2050.

Now the range does widen as we get further out, and you can see some different projections for different demand assumptions on the chart. But what we'll see on top of that 200 million tonnes of supply already under construction is we need about another 200 million tonnes of investment to start to meet that gap between the supply and the demand ranges you see on the chart. That's also to manage the offsets that we'll get from existing facilities that will have natural decline over the same period. So on the right-hand chart there, you can see the growth from '25 to '50 and the supply gap that sits in the middle there where we will need that further investment to meet the difference.

Now when we think about this all together and what the industry has experienced over the last 10 years, it has been a period of turbulence and the market has adapted incredibly well, showing resilience in the system to continue to supply energy to where it's needed most. We've seen growing supply diversification, increases in supply expansion, both in the U.S. and other supply points around the world. We've also seen a changing in the market balancing mechanisms, China emerging as one of the key global market balances between its domestic production, its pipeline imports and its LNG imports. But Europe continues that role as well in terms of being both a source of base demand for LNG and flexibility to flex up and down depending on the signals for demand and the available supply dynamics.

So those 2, combined with that supply side flexibility that we're now seeing emerging from the U.S. continue to provide that market with the flexibility that it needs. And our customers and other market participants are building their own portfolio flexibility, offering pathways to optimize their energy flows, not just within LNG, but more broadly across the energy complex. This supply expansion is providing competitiveness for the future. And whilst we navigate some extreme events over the last 5 or 6 years, the affordability of LNG continues to be an incredibly important factor for buyers to maintain their confidence in growing their market infrastructure and their reliance on LNG imports.

We see emerging segments that Cederic talked about in transportation, both on the road and at sea, as this broadens the use of LNG globally and continues to impress year-on-year with the growth compared to what we've seen in prior outlooks. But as important through this is making sure that we enable and encourage the balanced transition that the market needs, lowering the intensity of the products that we produce and ensuring that we continue to deliver an economic viable proposition to our customers. So hopefully, you've seen through this period some really interesting facts and changes from the LNG outlook over the last 10 years. We continue to be well focused on the market ahead as well as navigating some of the challenges that we've experienced over the last few years.

With that, I'll thank you for joining us today, and we'll close out here. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Welcome to Shell's First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Announcement. Shell's CFO, Sinead Gorman, will present the results, then host a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We will now begin the presentation.

Welcome to Shell's First Quarter 2026 Results Presentation. I'm pleased that amid heightened volatility this quarter, we delivered strong results through our relentless focus on operational performance and the strength of our integrated global portfolio. Yet again, our staff rose to the challenge, and we're able to deliver this safely and effectively, navigating another quarter of uncertainty.

Let me first take you through our Q1 results before I come back to the impact of the Middle East conflict in more detail. We delivered a strong set of results with adjusted earnings for the quarter of just under $7 billion, and we generated over $17 billion of cash flow from operations, excluding working capital. Our working capital outflow for the quarter was some $11 billion, reflecting the impact of higher commodity prices on inventory and receivables.

We would expect a significant amount of this outflow to reverse over time. Now turning to our businesses in more detail. In Upstream, we delivered strong operational performance across the board. For example, in Brazil, we achieved record production levels. In Nigeria, at Bonga, we completed a turnaround 10 days ahead of plan. And in the United States, our Mars platform became the first asset in the Gulf of America to reach 1 billion barrels of oil production.

In Integrated Gas, the continued ramp-up of LNG Canada helped to offset the impact of cyclones in Australia and the shutdown of production in Qatar. LNG trading and optimization results were broadly in line with the previous quarter, reflecting price lags in our term contracts.

Chemical margins remain depressed, but the team remains focused on making the business free cash flow positive, and we are seeing some encouraging signs. In Products, the results were driven by impressive refining performance with utilization of 99% and by significantly higher trading and optimization contributions.

Marketing also had another great quarter despite the pressure of higher feedstock prices in March. Lubricant sales were seasonally higher, whilst overall segment results were also helped by our ability to optimize product flows across the different marketing businesses. Overall, this was a strong set of results in a period of volatility and uncertainty stemming from the conflict in the Middle East.

While the Middle East is home to around 1/5 of Shell's hydrocarbon production, impacts have varied by country. Our Heartland position in Oman accounts for around 10% of our global volumes, volumes that don't pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The most significant effects for Shell have been in Qatar. At Pearl GTL, Train Two was damaged, but thankfully, nobody was hurt. We currently estimate it will take around a year to return this Train back into service. The repair costs are expected to be well below $0.5 billion on current estimates.

And Pearl GTL Train 1 as well as the LNG train in which we hold an interest through the QatarEnergy's LNG N4 JV are start-up ready, subject to our ability to move products through the Strait of Hormuz. Whilst much of the organization has been focused on delivering despite the impact of the Middle East conflict, we have also been able to make important progress on our portfolio in line with our strategy.

In lubricants, we announced the divestment of our Jiffy Lubes network for $1.3 billion, monetizing an asset that was not core to our business. In Upstream and Integrated Gas, we added new acreage in the United States, Kazakhstan and Venezuela as we continue to focus on resource longevity. And last week, we announced the strategically important acquisition of ARC Resources. ARC is a high-quality, low-cost operator in Canada's Montney Basin, complementing our existing positions at Groundbirch and Gold Creek. With this combination, we are adding highly contiguous acreage as well as long-duration, top quartile, low carbon intensity production.

ARC provides us with new growth opportunities, a liquid-rich portfolio and LNG upside. This deal accelerates our strategy, sustaining material liquids production, growing our integrated gas business, extending reserve life and increasing our expected compound annual production growth rate to 2030 from around 1% to 4% compared to 2025.

And importantly, this transaction meets our high bar for M&A with long-term value creation through double-digit returns and an increase in our long-term free cash flow, all whilst preserving our balance sheet strength given the 75% share, 25% cash ratio of the deal. With the ARC acquisition, cash CapEx for the full year 2026 is expected to be between $24 billion and $26 billion, including some $4 billion for the ARC acquisition. For 2027 and 2028, cash CapEx remains at $20 billion to $22 billion as we will absorb ARC's ongoing cash CapEx into our existing guidance.

Moving to the rest of our financial framework. At the end of Q1, our net debt position was $52.6 billion, reflecting the working capital outflows I mentioned earlier as well as the impact of some noncash variable shipping lease components. Excluding leases, our net debt was some $22 billion. Our balance sheet is strong with the flexibility we need to operate in today's volatile environment.

Turning to our shareholder distributions. Today, we are rebalancing our shareholder distributions by announcing a $3 billion share buyback program for the next 3 months as well as a 5% increase of our dividend. This is in line with our existing 40% to 50% of CFFO through-the-cycle distribution policy, which remains sacrosanct and shows our dynamic approach to capital allocation.

So to conclude, Q1 showed Shell's resilience and ability to deliver strong results in a volatile macro environment. These results reflect the strength of our integrated business model and reinforce the importance of our ongoing efforts to simplify the organization, high-grade our portfolio and build a stronger Shell for the long term.

Our Annual General Meeting 2026 will be on May 19, and we ask our shareholders to vote against the alternative resolution. By doing so, our shareholders will be endorsing this management team and our Board. And I hope you've had a chance to see our LNG strategic spotlight, which sets out both the growth we see in global LNG demand and how we plan to meet it.

As always, Our AGM provides an opportunity for our shareholders to engage directly on our progress in delivering more value with less emission.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you for joining us today. We hope that after watching this presentation, you've seen how we delivered a strong set of results in the first quarter, underpinned by continued strong operational performance. And now Sinead and I will be answering your questions. So please, could we just have 1 or 2 questions each so that everyone has the opportunity. With that, could we have the first one, please, Luke?

Our first caller is Matt Lofting from JPMorgan.

And my congratulations on the strength of financial performance amidst macro volatility in the first quarter. I had 2 topics to put forward, one fiscal and one perhaps more industrial. First, on distributions and capital reallocation. I wondered if you could expand on the degree to which today's shift towards dividends over share buybacks is value-led, factoring multiples, macro conditions as opposed to feeling a greater need to post M&A to funnel implied annualized net cash flow savings to the balance sheet?

And then second, I wanted to just pick up on Integrated Gas performance and wondered if you could speak to the role and magnitude of price lagging effects within performance because it sort of struck me that in the conditions the industry is experiencing, downstream perhaps acts as a faster response lead indicator in Q1, whereas IT margins and performance are slower burn and perhaps still to come [indiscernible] price lags and monetizing dislocations enabled by the working cap feeds through.

Thanks, Matt. So let me maybe use your second question just to talk about the performance this quarter. touch on distributions, but then hand over to you, Sinead, to maybe go through that. Firstly, just to say how incredibly proud I am of the entire company. Indeed, as you say, with the backdrop of uncertainty and volatility, this was a great quarter. And I think it's the momentum that I'm particularly proud of.

The momentum that we have built up, we have said that we are going to methodically transform this company to be a leaner, much more competitive one. And what you have seen us do is drive a significant improvement in operational performance. You saw that, for example, Matt, this quarter through some of the IG performance. LNG Canada stepped up when Napatri volumes were out. And indeed, what you will see is that price lag effect play into the second quarter for IG results because of the term contract nature of that pricing.

But every part of the business, upstream, chemicals, products, marketing has had a very strong quarter. You've also heard us talk about both cost and capital discipline. And again, you see that continue through. And we've talked about high-grading the portfolio. Last year, we did the sale of onshore Nigeria. We sold Singapore chemicals and products. And of course, just last week, we welcomed ARC into the Shell family, subject to completion as well, really building a foundation for long-term growth in an asset base that is very complementary to ours.

So really happy with where we are, but we are not done. My expectation of my organization is to step up at least 1 or 2 more gears, and we are developing the plans to do so, and we will continue to drive that forward. The other thing we have talked about and have said consistently is everything that we do is in service of long-term shareholder value creation.

Our 40% to 50% CFFO cash returns are sacrosanct. And what we have said is we will be dynamic in our capital allocation to create value for our shareholders through the cycle. And this quarter is an example of that. We bumped up the divi by 5%, showing the underlying confidence that we have in this company to be able to operate irrespective of the external environment. It's our 18th quarter of a $3-plus billion buyback. And indeed, what we have also done is we have been able to create capacity to be able to leverage that capacity at a down point in the cycle to lean even heavier into buybacks when we have the opportunity to do that. So we are thinking long term and acting in service of that shareholder value creation over the longer term. Sinead, do you want to add more on the distributions maybe?

Indeed, and thank you for that, Matt. I think the only thing I would really add is to say in terms of the balance sheet because balance sheet and distributions are intrinsically linked. From my perspective, I'm incredibly comfortable with the balance sheet. You know that by now. And in effect, that extra cash that we're putting on to the balance sheet or the additional cash is for additional buybacks in the future when the opportunity presents itself. Looking forward to that as well.

Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

And again, congratulations on the strong results. I wanted to ask 2 questions, if I may. The first one is on Frontier exploration. It's not something that has created a tremendous amount of value in the industry or at Shell in the last few years. But I was wondering if you think that AI and all of the improvement in computing power could actually change that and make it into a key driver for you to continue to expand your reserve life and your visibility on longer-term growth?

And then secondly, as the leading oil product marketer in the world, I was just wondering if you started to see some early signs of demand distractions, perhaps in areas where prices have been especially strong like jet fuel across your global business.

Yes. Thanks, Michele. And let me take both of those. I think on exploration, let me maybe just broaden it beyond just frontier exploration because I do think, and I've mentioned in the past, we have made a hard reset in our exploration department from a leadership perspective. We have restocked the funnel with some very exciting opportunities in places like Angola, the Gulf of America, recently Alaska and more.

But what we are also doing is fundamentally challenging our workflows to make them much more data enabled in the way we execute those workflows. And so we have been embedding AI as a core part of the way that we are able to look at, in particular, our existing reservoirs where we do have basin mastery and where we have sufficient and significant amounts of data that allows us to be able to really understand what other opportunities we have to tap into. And of course, for frontier exploration, we are using some of those same data-enabled workflows to be able to unlock more opportunities.

Too early to say how quickly that success will materialize, but we are leaning heavily into it. On your second question around the broader macro, I think what we see at the moment is a mixed picture. The hard facts are we are -- we have dug ourselves a hole of close to 1 billion barrels of crude shortage at the moment, either because of locked-in barrels or unproduced barrels. And of course, that hole is deepening every single day.

So the journey back will be a long one. And you're beginning to see that on the overall refining complex. So it depends on the country, it depends on the region. We are seeing indeed some demand curtailment to the tune of, say, 5% in areas like jet in the airline industry. But that's the only thing that you can expect people to do is either drawing down on stocks, fuel switching or in essence, demand curtailment. We continue to see resilience in many parts of the world, but the question will be how will that pan out in the coming months. Too early to speculate on that. Thanks for the questions, Michele.

Our next caller is Alastair Syme from Citi.

I'm trying to figure out in both refining and chemicals in this environment, how it plays out in the coming period. I mean you've got a quite a large footprint to Asia -- in Asia. Can you talk to both businesses about access to feedstock, how you can run the assets and where margins are sitting?

Yes. I mean, again, we'll touch on that. Actually, our footprint, in particular, in Asia is more limited these days, Alastair, after, in particular, the sale of our Singapore chemical and refining footprint that we had there. But the same question that you had applied, of course, into Europe as we are trying to make sure that we keep our refineries fed with crude, which, of course, when you have a 12% to 15% cut in overall supplies just becomes difficult or if you can get access to the crude, it's tough to be able to create value unless the cracks afford you that opportunity.

One of the biggest benefits we have, not just for our refining and chemicals, but also for our mobility organization is, of course, the strength of our trading and optimization capability. I think if there is a capability around the world that is able to take advantage of volatility, it is our capability. And you see our people are unlocking value. Q1 shows you that.

I think that's really key. I think on this broader question around chemicals, this -- what you have heard us say also in the past is we are going to do everything we can to be able to do the self-help that we need in our Chemicals business. And hopefully, you see some of that playing into Q1 results. We have taken out and plan to continue to take out hundreds of millions of dollars from OpEx and CapEx in chemicals.

We're improving the reliability. Q1, excluding working capital, was free cash flow positive. So good early signs. We're not there yet. Q2, you'll have a bit more of a tailwind, and that's partly because the margins are improving. And of course, you have the lag price effect also playing in chemicals. What we have also looked at is that this is an opportune time now to be able to build momentum around the plans that we laid out in Capital Markets Day.

And that's specifically to progress either the sale or some form of capital market transaction, in particular of our U.S. chemicals business, the predominance of our capital employed. And so we are leaning into that. But we will only move forward on that if we see long-term value creation for our shareholders. So we lean into it, and we will see what the results are, but it's a good time to be doing that now. Thanks for the question, Alastair.

Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research.

Wael, I wonder if I could go back to the Alaska question real quick and go back maybe a year or 2 ago when you said you had no intention of going back to areas of exploration that you weren't already in. But you kind of walked away from Alaska several years ago, and now you're one of the high bidders on the new lease round. Can you just frame for us what you're thinking? Is frontier new area exploration back on the table? And what are your thoughts on Alaska specifically? And I've got a quick follow-up for Sinead.

Yes. Go for the follow-up, Doug, and then I'll address the first one and pass the second one to Sinead. Go for it.

My follow-up is just on the pace of the expected pace of the working capital wind down. Obviously, it's a big headwind this quarter, but obviously transitory. But Sinead, I think you also said at the strategy update that you didn't expect the leases to continue to increase but yet they have continued to increase. So I'm just wondering if you can walk us through the dynamic of what's going on there.

Yes, Doug, thanks for the questions. Let me take the first one. I think if you look at our history in Alaska, of course, it was much more offshore Alaska. What we have gone into is onshore Alaska, and it's important to recognize how we've gone into it. We have -- we are not an operated venture. We are a non-operated player in that, and Repsol is in the lead because Repsol has deep experience in Alaska.

They have it and they've inherited, of course, from the acquisition of Talisman. They have production coming on stream -- either already come on stream or imminently in some of those areas. These are not frontier areas. These are well-proven producing resource basins, which is what gives us the comfort to be able to play and why we have been comfortable going in as an NOV partner, as a non-operated venture partner rather than an operated venture so that we can double down on Repsol's experience in that regard. Sinead?

Yes. Thanks, Doug. Two parts. You mentioned upfront, first of all, working capital and then you move to leases. And I think just on working capital, one of the things I would say is, yes, there is a sizable amount of working capital, of course, for us this quarter at over $11 billion. A significant proportion, the majority of that is actually, of course, price related. So therefore, as prices change, you will see that flow back in, and that was in sort of our pre-prepared remarks that I made earlier as well.

So looking forward to that coming back in. With respect to the leases, indeed, how we use leases, our leases are predominantly in service of the underlying businesses of both our deepwater business through either the FPSOs or the rigs or secondly, through ships and vessels, some pipelines as well. But those are the 2 areas that you typically see them flow through. So they're normally either in our upstream or related to the various trading businesses.

So our leases, as you've said, are quite a significant amount. You saw it go up this quarter. Why did it go up this quarter? It was predominantly one lease that came through. It was the Baltic lease. You've seen some of it, I think, in news reports from other people as well. But what occurred in effect is it's a variable lease, which we have some hedges in place against, et cetera.

But the way you have to account for that lease under IFRS 16 is you have to take the pricing on the spot rate and you value the whole of the future lease at that, and that's what hits. Therefore, you saw gearing being impacted up 1%, and you saw the actual number just over EUR 3 billion going up on our gearing. Now of course, I somehow doubt personally that, that will occur throughout the whole length of that, but that is the accounting approach of it. So indeed, we use leases to continue to increase value. But this one is one that is simply an accounting artifact.

Our next caller is Lydia Rainforth from Barclays.

And again, congratulations on the strong operating performance. I've got 2 questions, and they are slightly linked a little bit. But on the first one, clearly, the share price is up this year, but maybe not as much as we would have hoped and particularly compared to some of the others. So a very simple question. Are you feeling a little misunderstood at the moment in terms of the strategy side?

And then secondly, if I come back to the spending on the CapEx side and a little bit on the ARC acquisition, I mean are we -- when you think about -- you spent $16 billion and it closes some of the gap to 2035, but not all of what you want to. I agree, you've got a lot of time, you've got a lot of cash, you've got a lot of options. But are we actually now thinking that underlying the kind of CapEx you need to be for the business is a bit higher than you've given previously?

Yes. Thanks, Lydia. I think let's tag team on this one, Sinead. I'll give a bit of a perspective and then share with you. I've learned, Lydia, not to be disappointed or excited by the market. What I've learned to do is to make sure that we focus on what it is that we can control and what is it that we can control at the moment. I think our operational performance, in particular, in times of volatility, leveraging our trading does mean that we are able to create real value and drive cash at times like this, which is something which I think we can do better than I would argue anyone else.

This affords us the opportunity to be able to continue to strengthen our overall financial framework. And we have huge confidence in where this business is going. Of course, ARC adds a level of growth that is a decadal growth for us. And if we take a final investment decision on LNG Canada Phase 2, that's even more opportunity for growth. But what we can do is make sure that then we are allocating capital in the best way possible.

And that is through the cycle. And so for me, what excites me about the mispricing, as you call it, misunderstanding is that it affords us a unique opportunity to continue to lean in on buybacks as and when the opportunities come in. And the best example of this is just look at what we've done over the last 4 years.

In the last 4 years, we have bought back $65 billion of shares, and we bought it against that average price at a premium that essentially translates to 20-plus percent IRR, just doing the basic math of 2 billion shares bought back over this period and where the share price has gone. Those are the opportunities when we talk about being value hunters that we want to go for, and we will wait patiently to create those opportunities on a life cycle basis. Sinead?

Indeed, I think exactly where I would have gone to as well. And I would have said, just to add, Lydia, we've taken that extra cash. We just -- the additional cash we put to the balance sheet, and I told you we would use it to buy additional shares when the opportunity arose. So feel free to keep mispricing and misunderstanding us. We'll very happily buy back the shares, and that's what we'll do at that point.

You talked about the second question, if that's okay, the spending and CapEx. And I think what you were saying is we've -- through ARC, we've looked to close the gap to 2035. And do we believe that we'll need to increase our spend levels, I think what I would simply say, Lydia, is that since we had our Capital Markets Day, which wasn't that long ago, as you know, we've managed to close the gap that we've mentioned to 2030, and we've got considerable way there, actually, most of the way there to 2035.

If you combine that with what this company seems to do every single month in terms of increasing production and ensuring that we go after every single barrel, I'm pretty comfortable that there will be no gap that we need to follow through on. In terms of spend levels, our spend level, $20 billion to $22 billion is the CapEx that we put forward. We've told you that with ARC, we will go up this year, as we've said already '24 to '26, and we've told you that we will absorb the additional ARC CapEx, assuming it closes for 2027 and 2028.

And I would remind you that in there, in every year so far, we've been able to do small-scale or inorganic opportunities as well. You know our run rate is well below that. So I'm very comfortable that we can continue to maximize value within the CapEx spend that we have and be able to deploy capital to where it's best placed.

Our next caller is Alejandro Vigil from Santander.

The first one is about the strong marketing results this quarter. In the statement, you quoted the trading and optimization was pretty good. If there is also a component of savings in the quarter that could be recurrent for the coming quarters. That would be the first one. And the second one is about Venezuela. You have been very active in Namibia in terms of gas projects there. If you can elaborate about the opportunity there.

Thanks. I will Alejandro take the second one. Maybe Sinead, do you want to take marketing and more broadly, how you see the next quarter as well?

Absolutely.

Look, Venezuela, as we've talked about in the past, outstanding resource, but we will play in the areas where we have competitive advantages, competitive strengths. We have a long and proud history in Venezuela, and we're pleased to have the opportunity to be able to contribute to the Venezuelan people. Where we think we have particular, call it, advantages is when it comes to offshore gas.

And so indeed, we have been in discussions with the Venezuelan government on opportunities to be able to monetize some of that gas, which has been long stranded out there and ideally find a pathway to be able to monetize it through Atlantic LNG in Trinidad and Tobago. That is where our priority is.

Our current heads of agreement also encompasses some other areas which we are looking at onshore, but those are opportunities which I think will take quite some time to gestate. So we're very much focused on those offshore gas opportunities for now, and we'll need to work through the coming months to be able to bring them to life. Sinead?

Yes. And in terms of results overall, so first of all, you mentioned marketing had a great quarter. It did, absolutely without a doubt. It was good in-moment decision-making, frankly, to be able to optimize. And if I look at our lubricants business, they did a fantastic job, particularly when they lost actually some of their supply from Pearl in March as well.

So just some really good decisions there. Of course, mobility, a little bit tougher, as you can expect with higher prices. And let's just talk about Q2 going forward then and what do we see from that. You've seen some of our numbers that we have given a bit of an advanced look on. What we see for a company like ours is that integrated nature really plays out.

So you've got the benefit of the assets from both in upstream and integrated gas against that of downstream. And then you add on top of that, of course, the layering of that capability of trading and optimization, and that's where it really comes through. So whilst we will see things like an integrated gas, we will see some more challenges in the second quarter in terms of the volumes coming through because of what's occurring in Qatar, we also see the benefit of the price lag coming through as well.

If I then look at downstream and particularly marketing, which is what you referred to, marketing, of course, and particularly mobility, when prices are high, that's when it's a little bit more challenging, you see the squeeze of the margins coming through, but those get offset, of course, in other parts of the business. So you end up across the integrated portfolio having a very much advantageous position is the way I would put it.

Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS.

Just one question on Australia because there was some news overnight that the government is looking at requiring exporters to reserve 20% of exports in the domestic market on the East Coast. So are you able to provide any initial comments of how that might impact your business and your assets in the country, particularly interested in the [ Crux ] gas field given where that's backfilling [indiscernible], I don't believe there's a domestic route for that project, but just curious as what you're seeing there.

Yes. Thanks, Josh. I think long story short, early days. We have indeed -- we're still in the process of absorbing the announcement, not massively surprising, by the way, but there's still quite a few details we are still awaiting, including the implementation. Remember, we are already at close to 15-plus percent of our overall production goes into the domestic market.

So the requirement of 16% or so going into the domestic market is not a massive difference for us. Crux indeed is locked into LNG term contracts eventually or even flexible contracts because it goes into our portfolio. So we hope to be able to have more than enough gas to be able to supply Crux LNG. I think this is the Australian government trying to find the right balance between LNG exports and domestic support, something which we have been doing for quite some time. And I think this is to bring the entire industry on the same page. Thanks for the question, Josh.

Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

Well, I think 5% [ DPS ] growth is the headline we are missing because it's quite a significant shift from, I think, the last few years where you've been warning about, I think you once call it the sugar rush of giving the market a quick increase in dividends. But you're publishing today, in my view, is significant. So maybe you can talk around that a little bit and explain to us the comments you've already made together with Sinead now on saving firepower to do more share buybacks in the future, cutting them today and instead raising the dividend. Is that a new template? Should we now expect DPS to be raised more often than once per year?

Great question, Christopher. Again, I think it's one maybe we tag team on, Sinead, give you the floor first, and then I can supplement.

Happy to. And thanks, Chris. It gives me a good opportunity to probably debunk some of the myths that I've seen coming through on some of the write-ups as well. You articulated well. But let me just, first and foremost, get us to the point to remind you that everything we do is in pursuit of long-term value creation. That's the start. Remind you that 40% to 50% is sacrosanct in terms of the distributions, and that's what we're staying within.

So when you talk about either distributions or the balance sheet, they're intrinsically linked between the 2. So back to the dividend and you use the term sugar rush because we have used that before. We take the dividend incredibly seriously. With the dividend, what are we doing here? That 5% increase is reflecting the confidence we have in the long-term duration of the cash flows of this company. That's what it's doing.

Secondly, what are we doing on the share buybacks? Look, pleased that some of the hard work is showing up in the share price, but some of it, we still think they're undervalued. I used the word egregiously before, less egregiously than before, but not all of it has made its way in. So we're continuing to do share buybacks and continuing to do $3 billion, and that's a significant amount. But what we're also doing is taking that extra or additional cash, and we're allocating it to the balance sheet. But that's been allocated to the balance sheet in service of giving us the ability to do additional share buybacks when the moment is right.

This is about dynamic capital allocation. It's that rebalancing that's occurring. It's not a rebasing, it's rebalancing that's occurring, and we're moving that across.

Thank you very much, Sinead. Very little to add, Christopher. I mean the point I'd make is it was a quarter ago when we stood -- when Sinead and I stood here, share price was around 15-plus percent lower than what it is today. If we are going to be prudent, long-term value-oriented capital allocators, not looking at how we are able to indeed build the capacity to be able to not just do what we've done, but hopefully even do more and find those opportunities when there is a mispricing or when we feel that the market is just not being able to fully understand the underlying value, which we asymmetrically are able to see through the cash flow dynamics we see into the future.

And all of this is still built on what we think are further opportunities that we still have to be able to drive top line improvement, improve the bottom line through cost takeout and, not to mention the great opportunities we are having, whether it is through some potential negotiated deals, Venezuela was mentioned, but there are others or just organically unlocking more from what we have. All of that underpins that confidence we are showing. But if you want to be that long-term value-oriented company, then we have to be able to not be procyclical, and we have to have the courage to move in times like this, which is why I'm really proud of where the Board's decision was on this one.

Our next caller is Lucas Herrmann from BNP Paribas Exane.

A couple, if I might. The first one, I'm going to need some help, I think, with the Integrated Gas business, given there are so many moving parts going into the next quarter. Obviously, we've got an extra 2 months or I shouldn't say obviously, but it's likely we'll have an extra 2 months when the GTL facilities are both out of action. And I presume you had some inventory that you were at least able to use and benefit from as you went through March.

So to what extent does that impact the sensitivity to moves in prices? And aligned with that, I've had a month down in Qatar, but it looks as though you're [ going to talk ] about LNG now [indiscernible] your [ Q4 Train 5 ], whichever. How does that impact -- so really just help about thinking between price and sensitivity between outages, et cetera, et cetera, how I really should be thinking about the integrated gas business.

And then, Wael, if I could, can I just come back to the comments you made about chemicals, particularly North America, which I'd say are the most conducive towards moving to a place where maybe you can find agreement with other parties. Just as you sit here today, I mean, what's happened to oil suggests that ethane margin businesses are going to be better positioned, should we say, near term, medium term, depends in part on view on price. Are you actually -- are you seeing greater interest or are people that you've been in conversation with around chemicals in recent months over the last year, knocking on doors again? Why the more upbeat tone? That was it.

I'll take the second one and then maybe, Sinead, if you want to take the first. I think why the upbeat, there's a couple of things at play, Lucas. I think, one, as we continue to fine-tune the operation and the reliability of the asset, you are just seeing much more the full potential of the asset, which allows us then to move into the market as well.

So we've had a very good run over recent months and expect that to continue. So that's a good point to be thinking about if you do not see the strategic fit of chemicals into your portfolio, it's a good time to be able to act when you -- when you've derisked quality operations. I think the second point you touched on is exactly right. Ethane-based crackers, in particular, one like this one, which is already significantly advantaged at the lowest end of the cost curve in the right ZIP code in the U.S. with the right fiscal environment is attractive.

And we know the attractiveness has gone up. And of course, that tailwind does mean that you can move from discussing bottom-of-cycle conditions at a transaction to potentially more mid-cycle conditions, which is what as a minimum, we would need to be able to see. I would also say that capital markets transaction is another option we continue to have, of course, and we will develop that seriously to be able to make sure that we can balance those 2 options and do what's best for our shareholders at the end of the day.

I hope one of them works out, but we will make sure that it neither does because it's not creating the value for our shareholders that we don't execute. But we are going to be very focused on creating the optionality now. Sinead?

Thanks, Lucas. Indeed, Integrated Gas in Q2 is slightly more complex. So 2 aspects to it. First and foremost, Pearl, and then let's talk about LNG. Both sit within the Integrated Gas segment as well. So on Pearl, indeed, this is really about the 2 trains. One train will definitely be out for the quarter, that is clear. That's one that is damaged and needs to be repaired, and we've talked about that previously.

The other train could be up and running, but it's more about the ability, as you say, to be able to evacuate through the Strait. And I'll leave you to make the assumption of when that will actually be and how long that will take to clear all of those vessels and actually be able to move it through. So that will be a loss in terms of the income coming through from that perspective.

Then we have the LNG side of things. Of course, our LNG business across the world is doing very well in terms of keeping those volumes up, making sure that they're performing to the best that they can. But they do have the lost volumes in terms of Qatar gas, as you say, from that train that you mentioned previously. Again, if the Strait were open, that will be able to be flowing, but it is not at this moment in time. However, the compensating impact of that, and by the way, you see that in the forecast we gave you in terms of the production and the volume numbers.

But the compensating impact to that is, of course, where we see the price lag coming through. And that's typically, as you know, the 3 months. Interestingly, TTF, JTM volatility is still less than we saw during Ukraine and Russia, but we do see the volatility there as well. So you do see that coming through in Q2, which helps versus the lost volumes.

Our next caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC.

I had 2, please. The first one is just the performance in your lubricants business. It was particularly strong this quarter. It looks like the Q1 EBITDA was 30% higher than the highest result in the last few years. So I'm just trying to understand, given Qatar supplies some of the base stocks, how we should think about the sustainability of that result? Is it a sort of temporary phenomenon and a mismatch between cost and the revenues? Or is there something genuinely changing in that market?

And then secondly, just thinking about at the group level, if I look at your OpEx, and this is a very simplistic way to look at it. But in absolute terms, it looks like the momentum has stalled a little bit. I know there's always some seasonality here, but for the last couple of quarters, group OpEx is starting to increase year-on-year. I think when you first took over in 2023, there was very clear momentum there. So just trying to understand, is it just inflation eating away at some of the underlying gains? Or is there something else to note there?

Thank you very much for that, Biraj. I'll take the second question and then Sinead, if you want to touch on the [indiscernible] question. So where are we on our journey? I think, firstly, maybe just the context around us. So we're seeing at the moment, somewhere in the range of 5-plus percent inflationary pressure on supply chains, depending on which supply chain specifically.

If you look at subsea equipment, FPSOs, you're seeing a lot more than that in other areas, slightly lower. So we're working really hard to be able to offset some of those bumps. Important to also recognize that, of course, of the $5 billion to $7 billion OpEx reduction that we talked about in Capital Markets Day 2025, we are already at $5.1 billion of that, the majority being non-portfolio related, so structural.

And what you will also see is that we are very much going after the top end of that range now. So our organization is geared towards delivering the $7 billion. That will happen, of course, over the coming quarters. It's not linear, and that's important. Just to sort of compare Q1 '26 to Q1 '25, you're talking less than a 2% increase in overall OpEx, which if you look at the overall market inflation, you would say we're eating a significant portion of that inflation. And that just shows you the momentum we have in the base, not to mention some of the additional efforts, initiatives that we have that will bring the total down even further towards that $7 billion structural cost reduction. Sinead?

[indiscernible] I would have on the OpEx side, of course, we've brought in a lot of new volumes as well. So if you talk about the Ursa acquisition, you talked about the one in Brazil, you talked about Nigeria, those also came with additional OpEx, which partners would have had as well. So great to see good OpEx being used to actually generate other cash flows as well. You asked about lubricants in particular, Biraj.

And yes, it was an incredibly strong quarter. I absolutely agree with you. A number of things sort of feeding into that as well. Because it's an interesting one, as you say, if you were to look at it and say, actually, they lost some of their feedstock towards the end of the quarter. It was towards the end of the quarter. There were some inventories in place, of course, that they were able to do. But actually, as a result of that, we saw some advanced listings from customers because they saw the problem and we're worried about it.

So we actually got the benefit of some advanced cash flows coming in on that as well. We also saw stable base oil coming through. They managed to reduce their OpEx. So back to your original question, I would say our lubricants team have been very focused on reducing OpEx as well and driving that down. So some just really hard work but being able to eke out just more and more every single quarter.

In saying that, Q2 is going to be more difficult for them because they do not have that premium product that they've had before, working very well with customers to find alternatives and to make sure that where it's specifically needed, we get it to the right customer, et cetera. Great combined work across the industry, I would say. But I do agree Q2 will be more challenging. Outside of this and what is occurring with Pearl, I would say our lubricants business is really focused on driving higher and higher returns. So if you were to take the Qatar situation out, I would say that they will continue to be able to drive increasing and improved returns.

Thank you for that, Sinead. Biraj, thank you for those questions.

Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley.

A lot of questions have already been asked, but let me ask you 2 more. I was wondering if you could say a few words about LNG Canada and your continued ownership of the current stake. There have been some press reports in the last couple of weeks that there might be some sort of part of a sell-down. And the other one, I recognize it might be a bit tricky. If you don't want to answer it, I would totally appreciate it. But I wanted to raise this issue. Oil exports from the United States have been very, very high over the last couple of weeks, not only of crude oil, but also for refined product. And as a result, we've seen these steep declines in gasoline inventories, distillate inventories are the lowest since 2005.

And you sort of -- you look at some of that data and it raises the specter of return to the pre-2014 situation, there was some sort of export ban in place. And I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how that could impact Shell. And I'm asking it because quite often with these things, you can have sort of counterintuitive things where like something goes up, something else goes down and it all -- when you restart thinking through, it could be sort of quite complex. If that were to happen, is there a particular impact on Shell that we should keep in mind?

Yes. Thanks for the questions, Martijn. I'll take the second one and if you want to talk about LNG Canada, Sinead. Look, I won't speculate as to what, if any interventions might take place, but I will confirm what you are seeing, which is, of course, when you have 12% to 15% of the world's crude disrupted, there is going to have to be different offsets. And what you are indeed seeing, in particular, is many of the refineries in the U.S. are leaning towards more jet, more diesel to be able to meet the growing demand, in particular from Europe that had depended a bit more on Middle Eastern supplies.

And so you see some of those experts coming through. You do see stock draws. And the question is how long this lasts and how much of a problem do we build? Back to my earlier analogy, we've drilled a hole, 1 billion barrels worth of a hole, and we're going deeper and deeper. So to come back, it's just going to take us a lot longer. From a Shell-specific perspective, the majority of our exposures tend to be around our trading and optimization and the positions that we are taking to be able to satisfy our customers. All the narrative that we have, both in private and in public seems to indicate a U.S. government recognizing that exports are not the way to go. And so that is very much our base case that there will not be any export bans.

And thanks, Martijn. You asked about LNG Canada and primarily about the rumors in the market about a selldown. Look, LNG Canada is a great asset as far as we're concerned. But more importantly, it's about the integrated value chain that we see. So what we're always looking for is that integration. We're looking for the ability to be in the upstream to be able to benefit from the liquefaction of that aspect. So the steel in the middle and then being able to actually realize the prices outside of the country, so be able to ship it and of course, trade around it as well.

So that integrated value chain is key. What you're hearing is a consideration from Shell in terms of the midstream element of that do we need to have our funds locked up fully in the midstream part and the steel part? Or can we still benefit from it? And can we reallocate that capital elsewhere? It's a consideration, and that's what you're seeing being considered or being talked about in the press at the moment. But to be clear, we still want to have exposure to the full integrated value chain.

Thanks, Sinead. Martin, thanks for those questions.

Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

I had a follow-up on Pearl GTL, if I may. Do you have insurance coverage for the up to $500 million of repair costs on Pearl? And in terms of the 1-year repair time line, are you confident there's going to be enough contractor capacity to sort of simultaneously carry out the repairs on Pearl, while 2 LNG trains are also being rebuilt and the Qatari LNG expansions are also ongoing.

I also wanted to ask you about the -- I believe, the force majeure you declared on some LNG customers back in March because of the disruption in Qatar. I mean, given the vast scale of your LNG portfolio, is there any possibility to absorb the shortfall commercially? Or were the effect of volumes just too large? And I think you've disclosed the 2.4 million tonnes per annum of equity LNG production in Qatar. And then on top of that, you've got the LNG supply contract. Could you quantify those, please?

Yes. Thank you. I'll touch on a couple. And then maybe, Sinead, if you want to take the Pearl GTL insurance one and the FM as well. Just on the 1-year repair time, I was on site, Kim, just 2 weeks ago, had the opportunity to see where the team was. Super job by the team. All the debris has been taken out already. They had isolated the unit that was damaged. We have already put in long lead item request and we have a plan for execution. The scope is a limited, well-understood, well-contained scope. And so I have no doubt that we will be able to have the capacity to be able to execute that scope.

Indeed. And Kim on that when you talked about whether we have insurance or not, just our overall ethos or philosophy around this, Shell typically self-insures, but it very much depends on the requirements in the country and our JV partners' preferences. So I won't really comment on an asset-by-asset basis. That's up to the local rules and regulations.

But fundamentally, it sits within what we are comfortable with asset by asset. You already covered the contractor liability and availability or availability rather than liability. Force majeure, indeed, with respect to how do we handle force majeure, I would just simply say we follow what is in the contracts, and we are very thoughtful about what we need to do in discussion with the party who is actually operating and running the asset as well. So I won't get into the details on those, of course, because it's very much contractual. I'll leave it for those who operate them to comment on it.

Our next caller is Maurizio Carulli from Quilter Cheviot.

Congratulations on the sound and solid Q1 results. One question, if I may, being Shell the #1 LNG operator has a privileged view of the LNG market as a whole. So can you give us your opinion if the current Middle East crisis is going to cause any long-term changes in the characteristics of the LNG market and the way in which it operates?

Maurizio, thank you for the question and for your recognition of the performance. I think a couple of things I'd say. Undoubtedly, in the short term, the tightness of the market is real because you have 20% of the volumes are out. It's important to recognize it's different than oil. In oil, for example, the outages in the Middle East mean 12% to 15% of the market is impacted.

While 20% of the LNG market is impacted, that's just 3% of the overall gas market. And so it is much more sort of contained, call it, across the entire commodity in that context. If you look longer term, we absolutely continue to have conviction in the role of LNG for a few reasons. If anything, over the last 3 to 4 years, the one thing we see that everyone is starting to really get now is that national security is anchored on energy security, that national strategies, whether they are digital AI strategies, industrial strategies, environmental strategies are all built on energy strategies.

And therefore, the importance of having diverse supplies of energy to be able to underpin security and broader strategies is key. And LNG plays an incredibly important role in that. It is versatile. It is reliable, and it gives these countries the ability to have secure energy available to them. So we do see a trajectory of, say, 600 million to 800 million tonnes by 2050, resilient demand that is continuing to be there for LNG.

It will go through cycles in the short, medium term. But longer term, we have very strong convictions. Not all LNG is going to be the same. This is why we really like Canadian LNG because it will be premiumized given the proximity to the Asian markets and having a diverse portfolio like we do, we have supplies from over 10 countries and supply to over 30 countries. That is where the real premiumization of that LNG can play up. And you see it quarter in, quarter out through our LNG results. Thank you for that question. Let's go to the next caller, please.

Our next caller is Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen.

I wanted to go back to something that was discussed about feeling good about closing that 300,000 to 400,000 barrel per day gap in the early 2030s. It sounds like some of that is still dependent on organic opportunities developing. So how much of that have you closed thus far? And how much of that do you think will close moving forward as a result of positive exploration success or other organic opportunities?

And then my second question is on the Power segment, which I know is less of a focus now. But that segment generated outsized earnings in 2022 as a result of the high energy prices, there's been some restructuring since then in the business. So do you still see the same earnings capacity in that business in this type of environment? And conversely, does that -- do the higher prices enable potentially additional restructuring opportunities?

Jason, thank you for those 2 questions. I'll take the first one and then ask Sinead to address the second one. Look, I don't like to use the word gap because it almost starts to drive a volume over value mentality. I mean just look at what we have done since we put out there exactly what our production numbers were through to 2035. At the time, we had talked about 1.4 million barrels per day in 2030, around 150,000 to get there. we have now been able to, in a short period of time, show a trajectory for growth in our oil and gas production from 2025 to 2030 to the tune of 4%, up from 1%, making us one of the leaders in the industry in terms of that growth trajectory subject to the closing of the ARK acquisition.

And so we will always be looking at opportunities to create value. And of course, those opportunities will have an effect into the 2030s as well through into 2035. We do think that some of the exploration opportunities will contribute, both some of the, call it, more frontier opportunities. But also remember, we have a lot of opportunities to explore near our existing assets in many of the theaters in which we play.

That will create value. But also, we also have a lot of negotiated opportunities. Venezuela, we're positioning for plays in a place like Kuwait, in Libya and multiple other locations. Nigeria, we have some really exciting growth options. It's not the time now to sort of update on where all of those are. Suffice it to say that what we said was we were going to be developing 1 million barrels per day between '25 and 2030. We've already produced -- we've already, sorry, delivered 1/4 of that.

We have the other 3/4 and then add on top of that close to 400,000 barrels per day that will be coming from ARC. And so it just shows you the strength of the portfolio that's coming through and the underlying cash flow that gives us the confidence both to be able to grow the dividend today, but also, as I said, to then have the countercyclical way to lean into our buybacks even more when the opportunity comes up. Sinead?

Jason, I'll keep it short. First of all, indeed, our renewables or res sector had a very good quarter. That was primarily down to our trading colleagues indeed being able to maximize value through, frankly, actually what happened in January, which was a cold winter in the U.S. We've almost forgotten about that since then. But looking forward, what do we expect to see? We do expect to see the mix is shifting towards, as we talked about before, strategically towards flex assets, which will allow us to drive more and more of that ability to indeed be able to maximize returns going forward. And outside of that, of course, you see some small-scale dilutions that are still occurring in some of our original renewables asset base as well.

Our final caller is Mark Wilson from Jefferies.

You won't be surprised to know that most of my questions have been answered. So an anecdotal question. One of your peers spoke to a vessel being able to pass the Strait. I just wonder if you have seen anything like that and/or how many vessels you have on the inside of it.

Yes, we still have a few, Mark, that are on the inside. I won't give specific numbers, you'll appreciate because of the importance of keeping that confidential. We are getting a lot of signals from different governments. And what we are trying to do is to exercise prudence. I spoke to a crew just last week, a crew that has been caught there for a couple of months.

Most important thing is they feel well looked after, they feel safe. I asked them how they're keeping busy. They are playing cards at night. They are connecting. I just pray that we are able to continue to see that safe space they are in, and we will wait until we feel that it is absolutely safe to traverse them out of the straits. We will not do anything until we have that full conviction. There are lives at stake, and we will want to make sure that we handle that as we have handled all of our priorities at the moment, it starts with the safety of our people through this very difficult period. Thank you for the question, Mark.

And as that was the last question, let me thank you for your questions and for joining the call. In conclusion, we have delivered a strong set of financial results in this quarter, supported by another quarter of strong operational performance across the businesses. We're living through a period of heightened uncertainty and volatility, but Shell has experience operating within and navigating these conditions as we continue to deliver more value with less emissions. Wishing everyone a pleasant end of the week. Thank you very much on behalf of both Sinead and myself.

Welcome to Shell's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Announcement. Shell's CEO, Wael Sawan; and CFO, Sinead Gorman, will present the results, then host a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

We will now begin the presentation.

Welcome, everyone. Today, Sinead and I will present Shell's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 results.

2025 was another year of consistent delivery and real progress. We continue to execute with discipline and delivered against our targets in service of becoming the world's leading integrated energy company. As always, safety is a top priority. In 2025, four colleagues tragically lost their lives in our operated businesses. We owe it to them, and everyone who works with us, to learn from these incidents and to prevent such tragedies from happening again. On process safety, we continue to make encouraging progress with 30% fewer incidents in 2025 compared to the previous year. Improving personal and process safety is a continuous journey and will remain our top priority.

Turning to our strategy of delivering more value with less emissions. Last year, we beat our ambitious CMD23 targets and set out important new financial targets at CMD25. The first of these financial targets is to deliver structural cost reductions of $5 billion to $7 billion by the end of 2028. By the end of 2025, we had already achieved $5.1 billion of reductions with more to come. Nearly 60% of the structural cost reductions came from operational efficiencies, a leaner corporate center and faster value-based decision-making. Achieving this target 3 years early demonstrates the drive of our organization to deliver.

The next target is disciplined capital allocation within a cash CapEx range of $20 billion to $22 billion, and we ended 2025 in the middle of that range. This is about greater discipline and better capital allocation to enhance returns and you see that reflected in tough choices like stopping the construction of the biofuels plant in Rotterdam.

The third is annual growth and normalized free cash flow per share of over 10% through 2030. We are on track to deliver through a focus on performance and discipline by turning around underperforming capital, and we continue to focus on shareholder distributions through buybacks.

This brings me to the fourth financial target. Shareholder distributions of 40% to 50% of CFFO through the cycle. This remains sacrosanct. And in 2025, we delivered at the top end of that range. In short, we are on track to achieve our financial targets, showing that we deliver on what we say we will do.

Now turning to our portfolio. In 2025, we executed several deliberate value-driven decisions to strengthen our businesses. In Upstream, we completed the divestment of SPDC in Nigeria, the conclusion of a major multiyear effort. We also completed the Adura joint venture in December, which as of today is the U.K. North Sea's largest independent producer and unlocks additional value. And finally, in Chemicals & Products, we divested our loss-making asset in Singapore and are working to reposition our Chemicals portfolio to unlock further value. These decisive actions demonstrate our focus on value.

At our CMD25, we also set an aim of growing our LNG sales through to 2030 by 4% to 5% per annum. And last year, those sales grew by 11%, supported by the highest number of cargoes delivered in a single year. This record was supported by last year's start-up of LNG Canada, where ramp-up to full capacity is continuing. Beyond our organic growth, we also completed the acquisition of Pavilion Energy last year.

We also committed to bring new oil and gas projects online that at their peak, will add more than 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030, and we're progressing well. By the end of last year, we had already started up more than 1/4 of that new production.

We have also further strengthened our deepwater position by increasing our interests in the Gulf of America, in Brazil and in Nigeria. And we took final investment decisions for the Kaikias waterflood in the Gulf of America and for Gato do Mato, now renamed to Orca in Brazil. In addition, we have expanded our footprint for exploration by acquiring acreage in Angola, South Africa, and the Gulf of America.

Moving now to marketing, where we continue to high-grade our portfolio. Last year in Mobility, we closed or divested some 800 lower-performing branded sites. And by focusing on performance, discipline and simplification, both Mobility and Lubricants achieved their best-ever results in 2025. And in Power and Low Carbon options, we've continued to high-grade the portfolio through the year, divesting projects like Atlantic Shores and ScotWind, while also diluting parts of the Savion portfolio. These steps are aligning our portfolio with our increased focus on flexible generation and trading.

Turning now to the less emissions part of our strategy. At CMD23, we said we would invest between $10 billion to $15 billion in low-carbon energy solutions between 2023 and 2025, which we have delivered on. We have created options in Power and Low Carbon in areas such as CCS and bioenergy. We're now focused on delivering returns on those investments, helping our customers to decarbonize and leveraging our trading capabilities.

Last year, we also made significant progress against a number of our ETS24 emissions target. Starting with our target to halve Scope 1 and 2 emissions under our operational control by 2030 on a net basis compared with 2016. We have already achieved some 70% of that target.

Next, our target to lower the net carbon intensity of the products we sell by 15% to 20% by 2030. We are on track, delivering 9% in 2025 compared with 2016. Linked to that, we also set an ambition to reduce customer emissions from the use of the oil products we sell by 15% to 20% by 2030, and we met that ambition, achieving a reduction of 18% in 2025.

2025 was also the year we achieved our target of eliminating 100% of routine flaring from our Upstream operations, once again showing that we deliver on what we say.

With that, I will hand over to Sinead, who will tell you more about our financial results and our financial framework.

Thank you, Wael. Our financial results in the fourth quarter of 2025 were lower due to noncash tax impacts and lower oil prices, which were partly offset by another quarter of strong operational performance. Our adjusted earnings for the quarter were some $3.3 billion.

Upstream delivered a strong quarter in the current price environment, and as expected, Integrated Gas results returned to more normal pre-COVID levels as we have outlined in previous quarters. Marketing results were seasonally lower and further impacted by noncash tax adjustments in joint ventures. Products delivered strong results, helped by higher refining margins, partly offset by lower trading, which is typical in the fourth quarter.

And in Chemicals, we continue to face challenges due to both low chemical margins and lower operational performance. Fixing and repositioning this business is a key priority in 2026.

Turning to cash. Q4 CFFO was robust as we generated $9.4 billion despite some of the typical year-end payments.

Moving to the 2025 full year. From a macro perspective, Brent prices on average were over $10 a barrel lower than the year before. Despite this, we are proud that our stronger operational performance drove solid financial results in this lower price environment.

Full year adjusted earnings were $18.5 billion, and we generated close to $43 billion in cash flow from operations. And we delivered just over $26 billion of free cash flow.

Both Integrated Gas and Upstream had a very strong year operationally, with high controllable availability driving increased production. In particular, we saw increased contributions from higher-margin Upstream volumes, especially in the Gulf of America and Brazil.

In Downstream and Renewables & Energy Solutions, Mobility and Lubricants delivered higher margins through increased sales of premium products, whilst also reducing operating costs. As a result, both businesses continue to improve their ROACE year-over-year in 2025, with Mobility increasing to over 15% and Lubricants to over 21%, and with both achieving their highest ever contributions to our results.

Chemicals & Products had a mixed year with better refining performance being offset by continued low chemical margins and lower trading and supply contributions, while our Renewables & Energy Solutions business performed in line with expectations.

Now moving to our financial framework. Our cash CapEx range for 2026 remains at $20 billion to $22 billion. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with gearing of 21% or 9% excluding leases. And our distribution range of 40% to 50% of CFFO remains sacrosanct. We continue to deliver compelling shareholder distributions. And today, we announced a 4% increase in our dividend, in line with our progressive dividend policy as well as a $3.5 billion share buyback program, which we expect to complete by our Q1 results announcement in May. This marks the 17th consecutive quarter in which we've announced $3 billion or more in buybacks.

And with that, I will hand back to Wael.

Thank you, Sinead. Before closing out, I want to take a moment to thank our staff for their hard work, their commitment and their delivery across the year.

We're living in a rapidly changing world, but our business model is well positioned for these conditions. That confidence is underpinned by our balance sheet strength, which we've improved in recent years through stronger operational performance and disciplined spending. This has led to enhanced cash generation.

We'll continue to focus on what we can control and ensure we are positioned for countercyclical opportunities where they might arise and meet our high bar for investment decisions. Ultimately, we hope it's clear that you can be sure of Shell. You can trust us to stay value focused and disciplined.

We have entered 2026 as a more resilient organization. We have raised the bar on operational performance. We are showing more discipline and making great progress to deliver more value with less emissions. And there is so much more to come. Lower costs, further performance improvements supported by the transformative potential of AI and a higher returning portfolio of world-leading franchise businesses. All of this gives us confidence for the road ahead. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you very much for joining us today. We hope that after watching this presentation, you've seen how we delivered a strong set of results in 2025 and how we are firmly on track to deliver the targets that we set ourselves at Capital Markets Day 2025.

And now, Sinead and I will be answering your questions. So please, could we just have one or two questions each so that everyone has the opportunity.

With that, could we have the first question please, Jake?

Our first caller is Alastair Syme from Citi.

I feel obliged to kick us off on reserves. You've listed a huge amount of portfolio refocus in the Upstream. But I guess, to Shell, we've had 3 years of sprint and cost takeout, but at the same time, reserve life has fallen 15%. And if I take you back a couple of years ago, you used to say there was no portfolio problem. And I think now the message is morphed into one that sort of acknowledges there is a bit of a problem to address, but there's no hurry. So I guess the question is what is the plan? How do we frame the time line around hurry? And how can you counter the market concerns that the business is simply shrinking?

Yes. Thank you very much, Alastair. I'll suggest I kick off and then maybe, Sinead, bring you in. Yes, first, thank you for the question. I think I'll start with what you and I have talked about in the past. Where we start and what I keep saying and I keep hearing back from my investors is that at the end of the day, it's intrinsic value creation that we are driving. And it's particularly value creation per share that we are driving towards. And so there are a few elements of how we are unlocking that. I think you touched on one of them, fundamentally driving the performance culture in the company, the takeout of the $5 billion of cost reduction, and we are now driving towards the higher end of the $5 billion to $7 billion range. There's more to be done on capital efficiency. There's more to be done on improving the returns on the actual capital employed. So there's significant value uplift on that side of it.

We also showed, of course, in Capital Markets Day 2025, the trajectory to 2040 for both Integrated Gas and Marketing, where we see our cash flow growing from around $20 billion last year to close to $25-plus billion at a slightly lower capital diet. So all of that is showing the growth. But then let me come specifically to the heart of the question around resource. What we have tried to do is look at the resource as an important KPI in the overall mix, but most importantly, look at the cash flow that's coming from it. I mentioned in Capital Markets Day that we had a gap to 2030 that was close to 100,000 barrels per day to be able to, for example, keep our liquids flat. I'm pleased to say that with the $2 billion of deepwater bolt-ons that we did in 2025 and improved recovery from some of the reservoirs we have, we already have largely plugged that gap of the 100,000 barrels per day. So that actually gives us the runway to be able to derisk the 10% free cash flow per share that we talked about in Capital Markets Day.

Your question, though, is a fair one when you look out to 2035. We still have a resource gap there that we plan to fill. But we want to make sure that the bar continues to be high there. And we have a few years to be able to fill that gap. So this is not ignoring the issue. But this is derisking what we can see in front of us, what we can control and making sure that we deliver on our commitment to our shareholders to do it in a highly accretive way. And that's what we want to be able to work on. We are liquidating the 1 million barrels per day of new capacity we're bringing in. Last year, we brought 1/4 of that. We have another 750,000 barrels per day to bring online. We have exciting new projects like Bonga South West, that is also coming in the post 2030 time frame. We need to be able to move those things through. But the core continues to be one of real focus on proper capital stewardship as we unlock that future cash flow.

Sinead, maybe you want to add a few words?

Yes, just a little bit on that as well because I think you covered indeed how we're closing the gap.

Let me just talk you through our thinking a bit. And I think as Wael positioned very well, of course, things like reserves or R/P are important metrics, but it's only one metric as we look at the depth of our portfolio. So let me go specifically on R/P. So roughly speaking, we were at about 7.8 years, as you know, now, which came down from 9. How did we -- what were the decision-making between coming down from 9? Two main elements of that. One was the SPDC sales, so the sale in Nigeria of assets and the other, of course, was the move with respect to oil sands, both of which we've talked over the last year or so with you. And of course, both were very conscious decisions.

And of course, the reason they were conscious decisions, if we kept them, we would have stayed at about the same level given all of the additions that we had as well. But we consciously chose not to do that. And that $2 billion of CapEx instead that we move towards deepwater, what did that do? The fact that we put it into deepwater and that was Gulf of America, that was Brazil, that was Nigeria as well and a number of other aspects. Those ended up with very high-margin barrels, but of course, didn't have quite the same length in terms of the R/P or the impact on the R/P. We chose to go with high margin, therefore, creating value rather than just trying to manage to a metric. And of course, as you know, when we talk to the shareholders, it's very much about focus on not moving towards one metric, but actually generating value.

And so let me close then, Alastair, and thank you for that, Sinead. What I will say is we are, of course, at an inflection point as a company as well. We have really been focused on the performance drive, the embedding the performance culture, and I think made great progress. What I can say and what I will be saying to our investors is both Sinead and I will bring that same focus and rigor now as we have really gotten the self-sustaining performance loop into the company. We will now look at portfolio reallocation, how we are going to be reallocating capital to the opportunities that allow us to unlock even further growth post 2030, and that's where our attention will continue to go in the coming years.

Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS.

Just a question on the buybacks. I'm curious as when you set the buyback, how much of a close call that was this quarter? Because I understand you've got a strong balance sheet, prices seem to be holding up better than expected, but also for the first time in a while, we've got more people buying energy stocks and your shares are clearly rerated with that and they're more expensive. So was that considered at all in your decision to leave it flat? And how much -- how close was that call?

Thanks for the question, Josh. Sinead?

Yes. No, happy to take that. Thanks, Josh. Really good question. And what I like is you're asking us about how we think about it. And it is a conscious decision in terms of capital allocation each quarter, of course. I mean with respect to the buybacks and where do we go on the buyback, I mean, one of the first things I would say is what we've looked at is the fact that we've bought back roughly, what, 25% of our shares, I think, over the last 3 years. And of course, that's at some 20% below where our share price is today. So you can see the allocation around that. So that thoughtfulness is there.

The frame that we use has been sort of quite clear. We've always said to you that sort of 40% to 50% in terms of CFFO distribution is sacrosanct. And of course, that varies a little bit quarter-to-quarter because it is through the cycle. So you see that in our thinking. And of course, this quarter was 52%, but you have volatility with price and everything else coming through. So we're very comfortable and very focused on staying within that. But indeed, we still see the buybacks as particularly at this sort of price as very much value led. And of course, we have such a strong balance sheet, as you know, when we're sitting at some 20% of gearing as well.

Our next caller is Irene Himona from Bernstein.

I had two, please. So first, can you please speak around the key financial impacts of the Adura joint venture in the U.K. in 2026 on key metrics like perhaps your cash dividend receipts or Upstream tax rates, et cetera? And then secondly, looking at group return on capital, obviously, it is below double digit. It's clearly not helped by widening Chemicals losses. The Chemicals down cycle appears to be a really prolonged one, which is clearly something that cannot be controlled. So I wanted to talk around what you are controlling in Chemicals and in particular, to ask about progress on the announcement you made at CMD25 of the restructuring intention for Chemicals? So how far has that progressed?

Thank you very much, Irene. I'll take the second one. Maybe you want to start with the first one on Adura?

Certainly. Indeed, Adura really pleased, Irene, to see that actually up and running with our partner on the 1st of December. Teams are doing well there. It's really is a stand-alone venture, of course. You can see them out there looking at raising debt to be able to continue to grow that business and to be able to use capital very efficiently there as well. But you specifically asked about how would we see that play out in some of our metrics. What you see, of course, is because it is a stand-alone entity, you see a lot of the normal aspects pulling out. You see the production reduced coming through in our outlook or that production -- sorry, production being reduced in our Q1 outlook as well. So you see that in the Upstream numbers. And in contrast, what you will see, as you exactly rightly say, we'll see dividends coming in.

Now we don't tend to give guidance. Of course, it's a stand-alone venture, as you know, but we expect to see considerable dividends coming through. And of course, I saw yesterday, of course, our partner, of course, made some comments in that respect as well. Venture is strong. It has the ability to grow. It's the largest stand-alone producer, independent in the North Sea now, and they're looking at many more opportunities and are driving hard to be able to return to the shareholders the dividends that they've rightly promised us.

Thanks, Sinead. Irene to your second question around group ROACE and then the Chems. So a couple of points maybe. Firstly, in my response to Alastair's question, I talked about our real focus on performance, right? We want this company to be the best performing, best returning company in our sector, positioned for longevity and positioned for sustained growth. And so we've been focusing very much on the performance.

And actually, that's also starting to show through on the returns. You saw that this past year at 9.4% ROACE. By the way, that was up compared to 2024, despite a $10 drop in oil price. And that shows you we're making progress. Some of that progress is coming through, for example, in Mobility, where we had put a target of getting to 15% ROACE. We're up from 12% to 15% in 2025. Lubricants is up from 19% to 21%. Res, despite the fact that it is still nowhere close to where we need it to be, is up 4% points on ROACE as well between '24 and '25. So we're making progress.

And Chemicals is not where it needs to be. And there's a couple of elements around Chemicals that you touched on. Let's talk about, firstly, the strategic element of Chemicals. Nothing's changed from what we talked about in Capital Markets Day. What I also said in Capital Markets Day is we are going to be patient because while we know where we want to go with it, we do not want to be selling at bottom-of-cycle conditions. We have promised our shareholders to be good stewards of their capital. And what we are looking at, at the moment is constructs that could potentially work. I won't update you at this stage on where things are because there's nothing specific to update on. But you can rest assured that we continue to look at opportunities around that.

Where I would say I have less patience is in our own self-help. I already indicated a couple of quarters ago that we are looking at what more we can do. So the team did some great work around that. Q4 was a bit more difficult as well because we had a planned downturn in Monaca. But as we come out of that, we hopefully get a bit more tailwind there. But most importantly, we have identified a few hundred million dollars' worth of cost reductions, CapEx reductions to be able to just ensure that we get closer and closer towards free cash flow neutrality. So at least it covers its face in a difficult macro like we have at the moment. Hopefully, that also sets us up for a better performance when we see Chemical margins come through. But we are assuming that if there is a prolonged period of depressed Chemicals margins that we at least need to be able to avoid the bleeding in free cash flow from Chemicals. And that's very much our intent and what we're focused on.

Our next caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC.

My first one is just on operating costs. You've clearly made that a priority in recent years and there's progress being made. When I look at your divisional breakdown, the one thing that surprises me is that when I look at the Renewables business, the OpEx still looks outsized relative to the size of that business and the contribution and I guess, the outlook. So my question on that front is, why aren't you moving faster to reduce costs specifically there? Or is that building options for the future or is there something else?

And then just a second question, a follow-up to the resource one. In the past, and even today, you've mentioned you want to be countercyclical. So I guess, there's a balance between knowing where you are in the cycle, but also understanding the competitive landscape. As I'm listening to your peers talk about the same issue over recent months, a number of them have started to talk up M&A. So you could argue there's increased competition on the buyer side. So just some perspectives on your patience and the competitive landscape would be helpful there.

Biraj, thank you for those questions. Let me take the second one and maybe give you the first one, Sinead.

Look, I think you heard me, Biraj, in the third quarter results, open up the space much more for M&A as we start to get much more comfortable that we now have the internal performance to be able to unlock value better than others can. And that to me was an important element of what we needed to do because I didn't want to simply add resource for the sake of it. Of course, we had started with a capital budget of $25 billion to $27 billion. We took it down to $22 million to $25 million in CMD23. We took it down to $20 million to $22 million in CMD25, and we haven't used the full capacity. Not because we can't buy barrels, but because we have said to ourselves that we're only going to go after accretive barrels. That's what's core for us.

Now as we look at the landscape, I'd start off by saying the biggest thing we had to do was to continue to create the space for us to have the strategic patience. And to Alastair's question, we now have that line of sight to 2030, which means we built ourselves a few years to be able to really be selective about what we go for.

But we are hungry for growth. Don't get me wrong. But we want to do it on the right terms. And so where do we see opportunities to play, where we can synergize, not simply buying the barrels, but where we think we can bring particular technologies where we have synergies with existing assets. You've seen us do deals in Brazil, in Nigeria, and the GOA. Those are the sorts of areas where we can play in, but there are other areas where we are looking for that.

We will continue. I can tell you, I have a lot of opportunities coming on -- coming to my desk on a regular basis. And I would say I see more of them starting to screen now than we would have a year ago. But we are looking at making sure that we do not fall into the pitfalls of the past, where we start to sort of do deals for the sake of resource buildup rather than do deals that create value through the life cycle and allow our shareholders to be able to really get the most out of the decisions we're taking.

Sinead?

Indeed. Thanks, Biraj. You're absolutely right in terms of cost being a focus over the last period, but it's been cost really in service of performance. So what have we done? As you know, we've taken some $5.1 billion out of structural costs over the period. So actually heading into the bandwidth, which we have talked to the band that we talked about as a target for Capital Markets Day '25. So we've done it a couple of years early. So you can really see the business motoring in terms of just as a company, how can we ensure that every dollar is allocated in the right way. And there's a lot more to come. That's clear. And there's a lot of pressure from the boss on making sure we do actually deliver on that as well.

But specifically, it's very thoughtful about where we take it out. And as you say, in terms of our Renewables segment, there is more to come. But we've actually taken $1 billion out of OpEx over the last few years there. And we're changing the portfolio mix, remember. So as we change that away from some of the generation assets that we would have had before, we're moving it more towards some of the flex and assets that we can trade around. So of course, what you're seeing is as we make some of the divestments, as we change that portfolio mix, that comes down on that side, but actually goes up in terms of the actual flex side.

And actually, we had quite a bit of OpEx that came from our CCGT acquisition in Rhode Island as well. So that's coming through. And remember, that Res portfolio with that Renewables portfolio is continuing to change. And actually, we've done more than 15 deals over the last 2 years in that space, more than half of them actually within the last year as well. So more to come.

Our next caller is Paul Cheng from Scotiabank.

Wael, can you talk about the new opportunity set. It seems like with the open up of Iraq, Libya and Venezuela and how attractive are those to you guys? And whether you are concerned, the opening up of these countries will compound the oil market oversupply? And if that is the case, how will it shape your capital allocation outlook, if any?

Thanks for the question, Paul. Look, I'd start maybe first from a longer-term perspective. So we continue to see growth in energy demand for -- well, through to 2050 at the moment. So some 25% uptick between 2025 and 2050 in terms of overall energy demand. We see oil demand continue to grow roughly by that 1 million barrel per day tick, at least for the coming few years. And remember, we're losing around 5% of overall supply due to depletion. So every single year, you're having to refill 6 million barrels per day. So longer term, the fundamentals continue to be very constructive, I would say, on oil.

In the shorter term, you're right to sort of hint to the fundamentals being maybe slightly long in terms of supply, but that's being balanced by a lot of geopolitical risk at the moment, whether it is Venezuela, whether it is Iran or others. You're seeing more ships at sea. And that's creating, I think, a bit more balanced and helping the oil price achieve what it has achieved.

Now turning to the specific markets that you've talked about. There is, of course, potential to unlock more production, but the world will need that production. So it doesn't concern me. It actually encourages me that we will be able to find the supply to be able to meet that demand. Most importantly, I think we are very well positioned to be able to play in some of these theaters. I was in Kuwait just a couple of days ago where the KPC announced the opening of some opportunities there, which we will be looking with interest in. We are in discussions, of course, with the Libyans. We have an MOU for some fields there. In Venezuela, we are well positioned, in particular, in the gas side, given some of the work that we had been doing even before recent events, and so on and so forth. Iraq, again, we have a strong position there.

So we see ourselves as particularly well placed to be able to enter some of these theaters. But again, it's going to depend on the entire sort of risk-adjusted return profile and our ability to be able to say to ourselves, "Is this where we want to deploy our capital?" It doesn't change our appetite in terms of the longer-term fundamentals around oil. We continue to be bullish and constructive on that.

Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

I wanted to ask you about LNG. It looks like we're going into a period of oversupply where we may need the shutdown of some U.S. LNG plants at least for a few weeks in the summer. I was just wondering how should we think about that potential outcome into the Shell portfolio with the positive being probably on the trading side, some of the negative in terms of some of the spot gas exposure? And also, in a cheap LNG environment, we should see rising LNG demand. But one of the big areas of growth, which has been China, feels like it may be slowing down and potentially with the geopolitical risk rising, they may not want to depend so much on a commodity, which -- where the U.S. is the largest producer in the world. So just wanted to have, if possible, some of your thoughts on that.

Thank you, Michele. And let me maybe touch on that. So what do we see in the LNG markets at the moment? Again, if I take the long-term perspective, if anything, we are seeing even more constructive demand on for LNG. We see it more and more playing the role of the stabilizing force in most energy systems. I mean, take Europe, for example, we do not have, of course, the coal assets of past. Nuclear will take a long, long time to be able to bring in as Europe shifts its energy system towards more intermittent renewable energy, you will need more and more of that stabilizing force, which, of course, LNG plays. And that's demonstrated just this year by the fact that we have had record imports of LNG into Europe. You consider now where we are also in the current cycle, even if you think prompt and midterm, just at the moment, we're looking at storage levels in Europe at the low 40% compared to the 5-year average that is closer to 65%. So Europe will continue to play a big role.

We see both China and India, actually, also still constructive on LNG, but at a certain price point, which is closer to the $8 to $10 rather than above 10%. So I don't think the Chinese or the Indians are averse to taking more LNG, but they want it at the right price point compared to the alternatives they have, which typically is domestic coal.

So where does that leave us as a portfolio? I think we are incredibly privileged to have such a diverse set of supply opportunities, one of the best, of course, being LNG Canada with AECO indexation that allows us to supply our markets in particular in the East. We, of course, also have access -- significant access to U.S. LNG. I don't know whether there will be shutdowns or not in the summer, depending on demand levels and the wave of supply and how quickly it comes. But I would say we are very well positioned given that balance of diversified supply, diversified demand. We have multiple different indexations to whether it's Brent, TTF, we can sell on Henry Hub or AECO and so on and so forth. So the cross-commodity exposure gives us opportunities to be able to create value out of the volatility that comes with that LNG market.

So do I expect a length in the LNG market? Who knows? There might be some, but we look through these cycles and create value over the long term for our shareholders.

Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

I wanted to go back to Chemicals. Last quarter, you talked about cutting several hundred millions of dollars from Chemicals. I think you referenced that again today. But I mean, this could be a very extended down cycle of up to another 4 to 5 years. So a few hundred million of cost reductions may not be enough. And presumably somebody has to shut capacity. So what exactly would be stopping you from outright shutting capacity? Is it the benefit of integration with your refining plants? Is it the environmental cleanup costs or labor issues in Europe?

And then I wanted to go back also to the Upstream longevity point. You've talked about that and yet we're seeing Shell continuing to put assets up for sale in the market such as Vaca Muerta in Argentina. I would have thought Vaca Muerta has a lot of running room, and you do have plenty of unconventional experience. So if you could help us understand the logic of that particular asset being put up for sale, that would be great.

I will let, maybe, Sinead start with that second question and correct that fake news article that came out, and then I can address the Chemicals one.

I think you just said it perfectly. Kim, I've seen the same article. I don't believe we've said anything about that specific asset at this moment in time. So indeed, lots of things I read in the paper or many other assets apparently that we're selling as well that I wasn't aware of.

Thank you, Sinead. And Kim to your Chemicals point. Shame on me, I should have also mentioned that, of course, we are also looking at unit by unit shutdowns where required. At the end of the day, we're looking at cash cost of each of these units and making the choices depending on where we are in the cycle. But nothing is off the table. Let me put it that way. We are looking at all the opportunities to be able to really get to free cash flow neutrality at some of these more severe realities around margin, and we are leaving no stone unturned.

Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley.

I've got two questions, if I may. I wanted to ask about trading. Sort of full year results is always sort of a good one. I know throughout the year, it can be a bit volatile. But looking back 2025, group return on capital was 9.4%. But often, you're willing to provide a comment about the uplift of the trading created to the group ROACE 200 basis points, 400 basis points, usually they live in that sort of ranges. In 2025, broadly speaking, were we at the upper end of that range, lower end of the range? What was roughly the contribution of trading?

And then the other one I wanted to ask, maybe a small point, but it relates to Kazakhstan. There seem to be some punchy compensation claims coming from the government of Kazakhstan now. It's not that -- we've seen this before, but I was hoping you could share some perspective on that situation.

Thank you, Martijn. Did you want to take the T&S one first?

Yes, happy to. Martijn, thank you for that. Indeed, as you know, our trading organization continues to be a core part of Shell's proposition. We have great individuals in there. We have a great set of assets that they get to trade around and some judgments that have to come with that as well. So indeed, we've talked before about the uplift that they provide in terms of being able to optimize across the organization or across the portfolio for us. They've continued to over 2025, as you say, had a very good year as well. Of course, Q4 is typically softer for us in terms of trading, particularly in terms of our crude and products desks. So just about there.

And we've talked about that a number of times. And you see that play out in C&P as well, and that continues to be the case this year. They have done more towards the lower end of that range in terms of -- you said 2% to 4% in terms of ROACE. But really pleased with what they deliver, and they're continuing to deliver this quarter as well. So thank you.

Thanks, Sinead. Martijn, on Kazakhstan, it would be inappropriate, of course, of me to sort of get into details around that given there is some legal proceedings happening at the moment. I think suffice it to say that we are disappointed that we can't see alignment between the joint venture partners and the government on some of these topics. It is -- it does impact our appetite to invest further in Kazakhstan. So we watch the situation with care. We think that there's still a lot of potential investment opportunities in Kazakhstan, but we will hold until we have better line of sight to where things end up. And I leave it to the individual joint venture sort of projects to be able to make sure that they represent the position of the joint venture partners in a unified way. But let me leave it there -- at that point for now.

Our next caller is Lydia Rainforth from Barclays.

A slightly different topic. Agentic AI, I think you signed up with SLB to deploy agentic AI across the Upstream. So I'm just wondering, what does that look like in practice? And what are you trying to get out of that? And possibly linked to that, obviously, you're already at the -- you already achieved $5 billion in structural cost savings. Target is $5 billion to $7 billion by 2028. So why not lift that?

And then secondly, I mean just the idea that there's more to come, the free cash flow growth per share target or ambition of more than 10% out to 2025 -- out to 2030. 2025 was sub-5%. So was that a disappointing number to you? Or was it just as you expected? And basically, it does imply that there needs to be an acceleration of free cash flow growth. So when do you actually see that? Is that '26? Or is it more '28 to '30?

Thank you for that, Lydia. Did you want to take that second question? I can touch on agentic AI and how we're deploying it?

Certainly, indeed. So as you say, we had -- so in terms of the free cash flow per share, it is a target, as you say, out to 2030. We also knew that it was going to be variable across the different years as well, Lydia. So you see that year-to-year as it comes through. And of course, in this upfront period, of course, the share buybacks are a key part of that as well as we go through.

So in terms of where we disappointed in terms of where it was for 2025? No. We knew where it was expected to come. And we've, of course, got a wave of different projects that are coming through. We've still got LNG Canada, of course, that is still to ramp up to its full capacity, and we talked about it as well, the number of different projects that seem to go. It is not linear. We know that, that portfolio will change over time. And of course, as Wael has already alluded to, there's a lot more to come in terms of performance. So that drive on performance is certainly not over, and you'll see that play out as we continue throughout the rest of the decade as well.

Yes. And to your question then, Lydia, on -- to the broader bucket around the cost reduction. So I think as you rightly said, we signposted the $5 billion to $7 billion, really pleased with the momentum the team continues to drive getting us to the lower end of that already. My expectation of the team is we do hit the higher end of that come 2028. So we will be driving towards it. And AI is one of those key elements. Agenetic AI is one of those elements.

Now where are we on that journey? I'd start off by saying that the investment we have been making in data cleanup over the past few years, the investment we are making to be able to harmonize ERP systems. For example, in trading and supply, we are looking to modernize our ERTMs to standardize them and to make sure that they bring the data-centric architecture that allows us to scale up AI's benefit across the organization. So this is playing out not just in upstream. It's playing out all across.

In Upstream, specifically, it's playing very much into the subsurface space and how we high-grade our interpretation of subsurface, both for existing reservoirs, but also as we look into exploration. And it's playing up in areas like proactive technical monitoring and the maintenance that we do. I would say agentic AI is also playing up very much in our functional journey. So as we look to continue to not just apply automation into the way we work, we are challenging the way our workflows are constructed because agenetic AI means that we can fundamentally approach those work outputs in a different way.

So I find it an exciting journey for us. We are not yet banking all sorts of cost reductions coming out of agentic AI because, to be honest, we're still learning. There is a lot of hype around it at the moment, and we're trying to focus on where can we actually deliver real cash gains rather than talk about it. And so I will withhold judgment as to how much it will impact the bottom line until I can give you an honest reflection on the impact it can have.

Our next call is Lucas Herrmann from BNP Paribas.

A couple, if I might. Just going back to Alastair's opening question. When you think about resource and you think about resolving the resource issues for want of a better word, are we -- do you think -- we're really thinking about resolving for a deepwater issue in that, that's your greatest strength, should we say one of your greatest strengths certainly in terms of the Upstream. And obviously, the margins there and the return on capital there has the potential to be very attractive. So question one is really just back on Alastair's, what are we trying to resolved for?

And question two, far easier. When I think about this year and LNG, it's really about volumes and about growth and opportunity. I mean, it looks as though you've got incremental volume coming from Calcasieu from -- I don't know how free things are around Pavilion, voluming in from Plaquemines, volume coming in from Canada, obviously. So it feels as though we're at a point now where LNG in volume terms at least should really start to drive improvement. And perhaps you can add to that by just commenting on where Nigeria Train 7 is and what your thoughts on timing are there.

Thank you, Lucas. I'll ask Sinead to take the second question in a moment. Let me just address the first one. When we think about the resource base that we want to sort of add to the funnel, I'll tell you we're agnostic, Lucas. I mean, we start from a position of we have a differentiated strength in deepwater. And of course, we can play into that strength. But we also have some real strengths in a bunch of basins with a bunch of technologies in our conventional oil and gas portfolio. And we have continued to hone our strengths in areas like Shales. I mean, look at what we're doing in Groundbirch, look at what we're doing in the Vaca Muerta, look at what we're doing with QGC, the upstream part of our Queensland assets. And so we are looking at how we can actually complement some of these strengths and create value out of it rather than trying to be too narrow.

At the end of the day, this is back to what I talked about earlier, creating value per share and finding ways to be able to actually deploy our capital in something that's going to be accretive. And so that is our -- let's call it our North Star rather than necessarily what particular resource and in what country.

Sinead?

Thanks, Lucas. Indeed. You're asking about what is our expectation in terms of some of the LNG volumes coming through? I think two ways to take it. Of course, you're right, we have volumes that are coming up, whether that's indeed LNG Canada actually delivering in terms of up and -- ramped up and getting to its full potential. We've got a number of third-party volumes, as you mentioned, coming through. And then, of course, we'll have different items such as Qatar in the years to come. But it's more about what we do with those.

At the moment, we have quite a balanced portfolio. We don't have a lot of additional length, and we talked about that before. We're a little bit tighter. And therefore, we haven't had as many opportunities to be able to deploy some of that trading capability that we have had in the past in different positions around the world. Some of those volumes will continue to come in the time period. But also if you look at it, we talked about actually having a growth in terms of our LNG sales of 4% to 5% coming through over the next period per annum, actually, through to 2030. Actually, what we saw in this last year was our sales grew by 11%. So you can see that sales side of things absolutely there and continuing to grow, and we need the volumes to be able to match that. So of course, yes, some of those volumes will start coming through as well.

Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research.

Wael, I know this reserve number, you've kind of inherited that. It's been flogged to death today. But I want to ask you a direct question. As you inherited the portfolio several years ago now, do you believe legacy Shell has underinvested? And if so, how do you fix it in short order, whether through M&A or without a step-up in CapEx? That's my first question.

And my second one is probably for Sinead. And it's just going back to the recommitment to the buyback. Going back to your strategy day, you had assumed a flat real oil price. Can you maintain that 10% free cash flow growth per share without the help of a flat real oil price or without leverage?

Good. Let me take the first one then, Doug. Look, I mean, I don't often look back. And if I were to look back, I would say, I wish we hadn't walked away from Guyana when we did. That's the honest truth. How do we resolve the issue going forward? Look, at the end of the day, I think we play to our strengths. I mean, today, we can underwrite a production flat line on liquids, and we have said we're growing our gas by 2% between now and 2030. And what we are finding is, as we really focus on understanding of our reservoirs, really focus on making sure that we are going after every drop, that is really unlocking value. I mean, remember, these reservoirs were barely scratching the surface of 25% to 30% recovery. You add 1% or 2% recovery from these reservoirs and you can sustain without massive capital outlays.

Now having said all that, that doesn't mean we don't play with seriousness and other opportunities. And so how are we going to look at that? One, we need to keep doing what we're doing inside the fence and do the best that we can to unlock those resources. Number two, we will leverage the strength of this company to be able to be out there to partner with the likes of Venezuela, with the likes of Libya, with the likes of Iraq, with the likes of Kuwait and others as they look to be able to open up with partners that they trust and partners that have worked with them for a long, long time.

We continue, by the way, to focus on our own exploration capabilities. which we have recently had a full reset of the exploration team, changed out the leadership of that team. And we're starting to see the early stages of success in terms of really securing some exciting acreage in a place like Angola. We secured acreage in -- more acreage in South Africa, acreage in the Gulf. And so that's the other, call it, value accretive way of doing it. And then selectively, we will continue to look at the right M&A opportunities with that high bar that I have referenced, but it needs to be able to justify itself to be a value accretive deal. Otherwise, we don't do it, and we have the time to be able to play that out into the coming years. Hopefully, that helps, Doug.

Sinead?

Indeed. Doug, good to hear from you here. You asked a question that can be taken from two different angles, one of which is just the confidence in terms of where we're going to for 2030. So indeed, that confidence comes from two aspects. It's from performance and it's, of course, from returns. On the performance part, I think Wael has talked to that, that's about driving the company hard, ensuring that every asset delivers on what it can and actually going even further than that. So you heard about the wave of projects that are coming. So you hear on that aspect of it as well.

The other is about effectively return of capital and return on capital. So in terms of that, if I take you through it in terms of return on capital, we are clearly entering into a phase of capital reallocation. You see it in what we're doing. You see on where we are moving our capital to in terms of allocating it more towards the Upstream and Integrated Gas areas versus where it would have been in the past as well. So that's about return on capital.

In terms of return of capital, so let's take you through. We've talked about it before. So what's our thinking in that? How do we go about it? We've got 40% to 50% in terms of distribution, which is sacrosanct. You've heard us talk about it more and more. So I don't need to go into that in great depth. But what also we have is we have a very healthy balance sheet. Our balance sheet is sitting at some 20% in terms of gearing. Now remember, we've had a range of 10% to 30%. You always say to me, let's look back over time. So over the 10 years, we've gone between 10% and 30%. So sitting at some 20% is very healthy. I'm very comfortable with that. And of course, I'm even more comfortable with that because during that time, we've managed to buy back 25% of the shares of this company and done so at a price that averages out at some 20% lower than today's share price as well. So you can see the creation of value there.

But of course, one of the things that you ask is how is that going to be in terms of net debt. If you look at the 3-year period, actually, our net debt is roughly the same level as it was before. But what has happened, of course, is that our -- what you see is the gearing has changed, and that gearing has gone up roughly 2%. Where does that 2% come from? Well, actually, interestingly, 3/4 of that 2% is down to those distributions that we just talked about that our shareholders tell us time and time again that they love and they appreciate the way forward we're doing on that. And actually, the last bit of it, so the remainder comes from interestingly, the Netherlands pension reform, if you remember, back a few quarters ago, which is a bit specific to us, but that had an impact in terms of equity as well.

So I'm very comfortable with where we are in terms of a balance sheet perspective and where we are from a net debt. And actually, when I look at net debt relative to the cash flow, the CFFO of this company, it is incredibly healthy, not only from our perspective, but also relative to our peers as well. So we're comfortable with the position of where we're at.

[Operator Instructions] Our next call is Henry Tarr from Berenberg.

The question probably is a follow-on from that. And I guess then, you've talked about securing acreage. Are you happy with sort of recent exploration performance? And I guess then, as you think about resource beyond 2035, is more capital going to be allocated towards exploration? And do you have a plan to sort of improving some of the returns there?

Henry, thank you for the question. As part of the reset, what we have done is not just put new leadership in, new targets in, but also make sure that we are really restraining the capital that we're putting into exploration to something that we feel is fit for purpose. So this is not an open bucket, let's go back to the swashbuckling days of exploration everywhere. We need to be able to prove to ourselves that we can create value out of that.

And so you asked me for my report card on exploration. I'd say it's mixed. Really pleased over the last year where we had a good step-up in commercial discoveries in basins which are familiar and known to us, smaller volumes, but highly valuable barrels that allow us to tie back into existing hubs. Less pleased with the fact that we haven't found the bigger plays that allow us to potentially create big new hubs. And so that's the space we need to continue to work on to improve. That first bucket is motoring on well, and I think we have filled the funnel with good opportunities.

I think we've really started to fill the funnel for the second bucket with some exciting ones. I mentioned the likes of Angola, which I'm really keen to sort of see where we can get to with that. And that's one that we need to be able to go. But I would characterize our pursuit of resources as being not one that is dogmatic around exploration or M&A or NBD, new business development. We will look at where best to deploy that capital depending on track record, on that risk-adjusted return, where we think we can create value, and we will pivot depending on where that value can be created. Otherwise, we will start to have tunnel vision down one pathway rather than keeping options open and creating value through whatever is in the money at that point in time.

Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

Wael, I wanted to ask you about the state of the M&A market. Not what you're about to buy, I get you. You're agnostic on lots of levels. But I guess it'd be interesting to hear from you, you've been in a number of data rooms, what deals that are currently being signed, what they are telling you whether this is a buyer or a seller's market, particularly when we speak about the assets that you're looking for, i.e., resources that are yet to be developed, whether it's the Namibian farm down that we've seen from Galp or others. Where do you think the bid-ask is currently sitting?

And if I may squeeze in another opportunity for Sinead to deny fake news. Tell us what's happening with LNG Canada, whether it's FID of Phase 2 or whether it's a farm down there?

Do you want to start with that one?

Yes. No, absolutely. Thanks, Christopher. And indeed, you know what I will always say on anything is similar to Argentina. Of course, you see a lot of news coming through. We will look at every opportunity to deploy our capital sensibly and to maximize value. So we have no -- what is it, sacred cows, holy cows. We've used both expressions or I've used both expressions throughout. But in terms of LNG Canada, what I would say is we're not divesting from assets that we have high conviction in. So very much in LNG Canada, we're looking at making sure that, that performance is delivered.

I think what you're seeing is a commentary in the press about reallocation of capital and speculation as to whether we would look to get out of anything, which is , say, parts or elements of it. The way I think about it is just pure and simple, where are the returns on every part of our asset base, and therefore, is this somewhere where I should have my money tied up, and that's what Wael and I spend our time looking at or is there somewhere else it could go. And that's actually true across the whole of the portfolio. We will look to maximize the value of every dollar we have sitting there. So if it's low-returning assets or if there's a better place to put it, we will do that.

And you saw it, for instance, with the Colonial pipeline. We were able to realize value from our stake in the Colonial pipeline. It wasn't a strategic control point for us. We were able to actually exit at some over 9x EBITDA as well. So it's those sorts of things that we will continue to look to do.

And to Sinead's point there, Christy, that focus on capital reallocation, I would say, is an important now area of my and Sinead's focus in this part of the journey that we're on as a company because we believe there is over 15% of the capital employed that we have, the $225 billion, that we could actually redeploy into higher return opportunities, which we want to actively be looking at.

To the heart of your question, and that, of course, plays into it as we redeploy some of that into, for example, M&A opportunities in Upstream and beyond, I would say the market is somewhere in the middle at the moment. It used to be at the higher end of the 60% to 70% range, and now we're closer to the lower end of that 60% to 70% range. And it's sort of in that space. So it is not out of what we have seen, call it, mid-cycle conditions in the past.

I think there's different things at play. I mean, there's one interpretation of the subsurface by different players. There's desperation by some to be able to create investment cases for themselves. And what you have seen us do is to look at all of these. And where we have been able to win is where we have had a real differentiated advantage like the bolt-ons that we did in 2025.

Now as we look at some of the other opportunities, I'm sure things will continue to evolve. And we'll see how we will compete for those. But the most important thing for me is to keep that broader frame of strategic patience, accretion when we do these deals, and making sure that we can add value to the barrels that we're bringing in, not simply adding resource for the sake of being able to satisfy a KPI in our books. And that's the approach that we will continue to use. It is fair to say that this will take more of our time, of course, as we get that performance muscle much more embedded into the organization.

Our final caller is Ryan Todd from Piper Sandler.

Maybe if I could ask one on an asset that you mentioned earlier and has also been in the news, Bonga South West. I think reports have suggested that you're targeting the 2027 FID there in Nigeria. Can you talk about what hurdles you need to clear over the next 12 to 18 months to reach FID? And then maybe more broadly, could you talk about the broader resource opportunity in Nigeria and other kind of existing basins within your portfolio like that and what may or may not have changed to make things more attractive in some of those areas?

Ryan, thank you for that question. Let's start with Nigeria. I was there, I guess, a couple of weeks ago now to meet the President and was very encouraged by the real drive to be able to support investment in the resource base of Nigeria. Of course, you know what we've done on the onshore, having exited that. That's opened up our opportunities now much more in the offshore. Bonga South West is a material resource. And what were the conditions precedent? A key condition precedent was a set of fiscal support to be able to make this an investable project, which I was very pleased that the President was committed to providing in the coming days as part of a gazetting process that needs to happen, which means we already have now kicked off FEED. And indeed, as you say, looking to develop that into hopefully what is an investable project. So now it really is just follow through on all sides to be able to make this -- the project we need it to be.

It's important to recognize that there is a lot behind those funnels in deepwater Nigeria for us. We have a project called Bosi. We have projects like Adura. These are all projects that now are starting to make their way through the funnel as the investment climate opens up in Nigeria. And we are talking about hundreds of thousands of barrels there. And so we are actively going after those and developing them. Of course, where we continue to have a lot of music is in Brazil and in the Gulf of America, where we have existing resources. Some of the discoveries that I've mentioned are in the Gulf that tie back into our existing asset bases as well. We're excited by areas like Oman, where we have significant access to gas resources in the blocks that we operate. We're building out in Malaysia at the moment and so on and so forth. So this is a portfolio that has -- that continues to create opportunities for us. And we are making sure that what is within our reach, we are maximizing the value from, while at the same time looking at those exploration and M&A opportunities that I referenced earlier.

Let me, therefore, close off, and thank you for your questions and for joining the call on behalf of both Sinead and myself. In conclusion, we delivered a solid set of results in 2025. And looking ahead to 2026, we believe we are well positioned with an investment case that remains robust through the cycle as a result of the actions that we have taken and continue to take.

Lastly, I'd like to highlight a number of upcoming publications, including our annual report release on the 12th of March. And on the 16th of March, we will publish our annual LNG outlook, the LNG strategic spotlight as well as the response to the 2025 AGM shareholder resolution.

Wishing you all a pleasant end of the week. Thank you very much for joining.

Welcome to Shell's Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Announcement. Shell's CFO, Sinead Gorman, will present the results, then host a Q&A session alongside Shell's CEO, Wael Sawan.

[Operator Instructions]

We will now begin the presentation.

Welcome to Shell's Third Quarter 2025 Results Presentation. This quarter, we delivered another strong set of results. Our adjusted earnings were $5.4 billion, and we generated $12.2 billion in cash flow from operations. The quarter-on-quarter improvement was driven by strong performance across our businesses with all demonstrating positive momentum. This quarter clearly illustrates our focus on performance, discipline and simplification is laying the foundations of a winning performance culture across Shell.

So let's start with performance. In Integrated Gas, strong operational delivery drove higher liquefaction volumes, which in turn enabled a higher contribution from LNG trading and optimization this quarter. The start-up of LNG Canada where 13 cargoes were delivered from Train 1 in Q3 contributed to these volumes, and there's more to come with the expected startup of Train 2 later this quarter.

Welcome to Shell's Third Quarter 2025 Results Presentation. This quarter, we delivered another strong set of results. Our adjusted earnings were $5.4 billion, and we generated $12.2 billion in cash flow from operations. The quarter-on-quarter improvement was driven by strong performance across our businesses with all demonstrating positive momentum. This quarter clearly illustrates our focus on performance, discipline and simplification is laying the foundations of a winning performance culture across Shell.

So let's start with performance. In Integrated Gas, strong operational delivery drove higher liquefaction volumes, which in turn enabled a higher contribution from LNG trading and optimization this quarter. The start-up of LNG Canada where 13 cargoes were delivered from Train 1 in Q3 contributed to these volumes, and there's more to come with the expected startup of Train 2 later this quarter.

In Upstream, our strong operational performance resulted in higher production. Together, Brazil and the Gulf of America made up more than half of our liquids production in Upstream. In Brazil, we achieved our highest ever quarterly production. And in the Gulf of America, we reached our highest quarterly production level since 2005. Both were supported by successful project ramp-ups such as the Whale project in the Gulf of America, which reached nameplate capacity with wells producing above the investment case expectations. This was achieved in less than half the expected time, showing the benefit of our design one, build many philosophy.

And we also saw numerous examples of operational excellence in other parts of the company. In marketing, the business delivered its second highest quarterly adjusted earnings in over a decade, as we continue to capture more value through growing margins of our premium products. Chemicals & Products results also improved quarter-on-quarter with stronger crude and products trading, whilst chemicals continues to face challenges with weak margins.

Moving to our second focus area, simplification, where the organization is making real progress. At our QGC asset in Australia, for instance, production reached an all-time high in the third quarter. This was supported by a reduction of almost 90% in well site permits ensuring operations are not only safe and fit for purpose, but also allowing the team to free up time for even more value-added activities.

We're also simplifying our portfolio, just as we said we would at Capital Markets Day. We continue to maintain a relentless focus on value over volume, high-grading the portfolio, where we see the opportunities to do so. And you can see this in our mobility business. Year-to-date, we've divested or closed some 400 lower-performing retail sites. Beyond mobility, we have completed the divestment of the noncore interest in the Colonial Pipeline, which generated around $1 billion in proceeds. And we also completed the sell-down of five Savion solar projects as part of our power strategy, where we are allocating capital to part of the value chain that offer higher returns and where we have differentiated capabilities.

Our third focus area is discipline. We take our responsibility as custodians of shareholders' capital extremely seriously. And that is why we made the difficult but value-driven decision to not restart the construction of our HEFA biofuels facility in Rotterdam. And we continue to apply that rigorous value-driven lens to all of our investments. Our disciplined approach to capital allocation allows us to remain resilient throughout the cycle while continuing to invest in growth within our $20 billion to $22 billion cash CapEx range such as the HI gas development project in Nigeria, where we took a final investment decision this month.

Looking at our financial framework more broadly. In Q3, our net debt decreased as we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet. We also continue to deliver attractive shareholder distributions. And at the end of Q3, our 4-quarter rolling shareholder distributions were 48% of CFFO, in line with our target range of 40% to 50% of CFFO through the cycle. And today, we announced another $3.5 billion share buyback program, which we expect to complete by the time of our Q4 results announcement. This marks the 16th consecutive quarter in which we have announced $3 billion or more in buybacks. Once this program is completed, we will have repurchased more than 1/4 of our shares over the last four years.

So to summarize, in Q3, we delivered strong financial results, improving our performance quarter-on-quarter. This improvement was driven by strong operational performance across the company and we'll keep delivering on what we say, focusing on performance, discipline and simplification. So we can continue to deliver more value with less emissions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you for joining us today. We hope that after watching the presentation, you've seen how we delivered a strong set of results in the third quarter and how our principles of performance, discipline and simplification are guiding us in our actions. Today, we also released updated guidelines on how to model Shell, which you can find in our slide pack. We hope you find them useful. And now Sinead and I will be answering your questions. So please could we have just one or two questions each so that everyone gets the opportunity.

With that, could we have the first one, please, Luke?

Our first caller is Matt Lofting from JPMorgan.

Congratulations on the strength of performance in 3Q. Two questions related to operational performance, if I could, please. First, I thought the performance in the Upstream business across Brazil and the Gulf of America looked like it was a highlight of the third quarter. How sustainable do you see that performance going into 2026 and beyond.

And then secondly, in the IG business, to what extent was the third quarter improvement in trading supported by operational outperformance versus greater market opportunity? In other words, is there any change to the new norm market conditions that we referenced in the summer?

Appreciate that, Matt. Thank you very much. I'll take the first question and ask Sinead to address the second one. Very proud of the work in both Brazil and in the Gulf of America. I think it goes back to a journey we've been on now for a few years, really trying to go back to what we've called the brilliant basics, rigor in the way that we are executing the turnaround. So this quarter, we still had turnarounds in both Brazil and in the Gulf, and those have gone to plan below schedule -- faster than scheduled plan as well as actually below budget. So really pleased with that.

But also just the rigor in the way that the teams are following through on all the different operational metrics that we are focused on at the moment. And so I think across the patch, I see that strength, not by the way, just in those two big bases, but also across our conventional oil and gas portfolio. In terms of how much is this sort of sustainable? I believe that the improvements we have are very much sustainable. Of course, we will continue to want to bring those facilities down for maintenance on the annual basis that we typically do. But we've also seen some of the tailwinds that come from new projects. In Brazil, you have Mero-3 and Mero-4 that started up this year. And in a place like the Gulf, we've had Whale startup, actually start up and do much faster ramp-up than maybe traditionally we have seen in many of our deepwater projects. And so across multiple measures, very pleased with that momentum and looking forward to sustaining and improving it because we know there's more to do there. Sinead?

Thanks. And thanks, Matt. Indeed, last quarter, we talked about integrated gas, and we talked about it moving towards a new normal. And how fast it was it's a new normal absent any opportunities to be able to trade around additional length or a variety of things that could occur in the market. So what did we see in Q3? In Q3, we saw very strong as well, put its operational performance, not just on upstream, but also on our integrated gas business as well. And that gives us length and therefore, the ability to trade around those. In addition, of course, there were some arbs opening up in terms of the different price lines between both Asia and Europe as well, which give the results that you see, which we're really pleased with. It's not a given, and we're so proud of the team for what they managed to deliver this quarter.

When we then look at Q4 and beyond, what do we see in Q4? So already, we're seeing some of those opportunities, but nowhere near the amounts that we had before, and we don't see any one-off helps. Of course, as we look to 2026, what we're seeing at the moment, the spreads aren't there. We'll see how it plays out as the year continues.

Luke, let's have the second question, please.

Our next caller is Lydia Rainforth from Barclays.

I have two questions, please. The first one, artificial intelligence. We do seem to be seeing an acceleration in recent months of agents of the tech available. How are you thinking about AI deployment cross-sell? I know you've been doing it for a while, but how far through the journey are you? And when you think about what it means to the cost base, does it make a difference there in terms of where you are with the plan?

And then secondly, can I do a big picture? I'm sorry about this, but what are you seeing demand-wise, because clearly, within the market that's competing seriously between is there an [indiscernible] versus market starting to tighten next year versus inventories not showing up? How do you see that given all the demand base you have? And how does the buyback fit into sort of that uncertainty?

I have 2 questions, please. The first one, artificial intelligence. We do seem to be seeing an acceleration in recent months of agents of the tech available. How are you thinking about AI deployment cross-sell? I know you've been doing it for a while, but how far through the journey are you? And when you think about what it means to the cost base, does it make a difference there in terms of where you are with the plan?

And then secondly, can I do a big picture? I'm sorry about this, but what are you seeing demand-wise, because clearly, within the market that's competing seriously between is there an [indiscernible] versus market starting to tighten next year versus inventories not showing up? How do you see that given all the demand base you have? And how does the buyback fit into sort of that uncertainty?

Lydia, thank you for those questions. Let me address them both, starting with the AI question. I think the reality is we are every single day learning the potential that AI brings to our business and continuing to grapple with that and what it means. It's requiring us to relook at workflows, the way we do work in general and how we can improve. And so I think we're at the cusp of some exciting things ahead, and we're challenging ourselves as a team, as a company, to be able to embrace some of those opportunities.

I spoke a moment ago to Matt's question about some of the improvements in the Gulf of America, for example. The platforms like Olympus in the third quarter of this year, but also Ursa, you'll recall, we deepened our interest in Ursa buying Conoco share. Those two platforms had outstanding performance this past quarter. A large part of that is driven by our ability to detect issues before they materialize on the platform. And that is very much leveraging AI, leveraging our data capabilities and being able to bring those signals to the front line, so they can intervene before a trip happens on a facility.

So it is already helping us today in the way we are driving business outcomes. We're also using AI and trading more and more and looking at how we can leverage some of those split-second decisions to be able to make sure that we can create value and we optimize across the portfolio.

The last thing I'd say about AI is, of course, beyond how we use it for ourselves. We are in constant communication with many of the hyperscalers. You'll have heard about our deal with Google here in the U.K., where we provide them the low carbon renewable energy that allows them to be able to run their data centers. So we are in service of many of these hyperscalers and looking at the opportunities to do the same in the U.S. through our Savion entity. So really exciting space that we're getting our minds around and continuing to drive value out of.

To your broader question around demand, what we see at the moment is indeed headwinds on the supply-demand fundamentals going into 2026 and a highly credible scenario that there is an oversupply in 2026. Of course, what we've seen in the last quarter or two is significant uptake in Chinese storage, and we have seen a lot more oil on water. So that has, in a way, sort of pushed out some of the oversupply. And of course, there's the macroeconomic or the geopolitical reality that we see as well, which puts a premium on prices. And so I think in the short to medium term, there are headwinds. Longer term, we continue to have strong conviction in crude prices going forward.

In LNG, we see a balanced outlook for the next year or so as we continue to see that supply-demand balance in good shape. And then, of course, longer term, we continue to be very bullish as well on LNG, and we can talk about that a bit more.

Finally, on your point around buybacks. I think in the context of the macro that we are going to be seeing what we have said, what we have already guided and continue to hold on to is our 40% to 50% distributions from CFFO is sacrosanct. And we very much intend to be able to continue to be within that range. And of course, we have positioned the company to be able to do that and to weather any potential downturns that emerge over the coming months a year or so. Thanks, Lydia, for the question.

Luke, can we go to the next question, please?

Our next call is Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen.

Yes. I wanted to ask about the outlook for the LNG segment, particularly with LNG Canada ramping up and then Pavilion kicking in. And if I recall correctly, you had mentioned that Pavilion wouldn't really contribute this year. So should we expect to see any uplift from those two items in 4Q and how should those impact results in 2026?

And then my follow-up is just on kind of the resource hopper and at the Investor Day, you had talked about needing more long-cycle liquids in the 2030s, a couple of quarters since that Investor Day. How is the organic opportunity set shaping up to fill that resource hopper versus your outlook for inorganic?

I'll take the second question and then ask Sinead to address the first one. Look, briefly, where are we? We have, of course -- we continue to drive what is a strong organic funnel. We've talked in Capital Markets Day around 1 million barrels per day of oil equivalent between now and 2030 to bring online at breakeven prices of just sub $35. And so there is a lot of work to do to be able to bring that across and to be able to drive the outcomes we want from that.

Beyond that, I spoke at the previous quarterly call around exploration, how we've continued to really sort of tighten the team, get much more focused on the basis where we think we have a competitive advantage, leverage some of the capabilities we have also digital and AI to be able to drive that forward. And I'm pleased with what I'm seeing from that team, and I'll have a bit more to be able to update, hopefully, as we get to Q4 on that.

I think in the broader context, we've also done some inorganic moves. We've deepened in Brazil in Gato do Mato as you know. We've deepened in Nigeria, deepwater. Not too long ago, we deepened in Ursa. So we are already moving with some of these bolt-on opportunities to be able to create value, while, of course, continuing to look at other opportunities that are attractive. But like I've said in the past, our bar is high and we will continue to hold ourselves to that high bar to make sure that we are able to generate value for our shareholders from any capital dollars that are spent in that space. Sinead?

Indeed. And thanks, Jason. You were asking about the LNG segment or integrated gas for us. We've talked a little bit about the new norm in the previous question as well that came through from Luke -- sorry, from Matt. When we look at that segment, of course, we're looking at both the operational capability and then the trading opportunities that come with it. On the operational side, the team is, of course, focusing very hard to make sure that we get all of our assets fully running. And you asked specifically about LNG Canada. And of course, we're more than 13 cargoes, of course, now out on Phase 1 in terms of the first string.

So what we're looking at there is, of course, is when do we actually ramp up the next train as well. And that will come between now and year-end. So teams focused on that. But of course, as you say, it takes -- it's not the first cargo or the second cargo that matters. It's actually having those up and running fully and therefore, being able to rely on them and have the ability to trade around them. So you're right, that will be more into and the second half of next year.

Pavilion very similar. We talked about it last quarter, if you remember, I talked about the fact that we're looking forward to getting those contracts in. We've got everything integrated into the portfolio at the moment, but actually how we manage them and utilize them, we need some of those to roll off and be able to have freedom on those volumes. And that will happen indeed towards the second half of 2026 as well. So we expect to see that coming.

Thank you, Sinead. Thank you for the questions, Jason. Luke, let's go to the next question, please.

Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley.

Two questions, if I may. They're -- both a bit about sort of specific line items in the financial statement. I noticed that the line item, underlying OpEx was up sort of 10% year-on-year. And I was wondering what lies behind this. Of course, I know there's inflation in the system, there's inflation, almost everywhere, and it can be hard to fight. But 10% still struck me sort of as a reasonably noteworthy number. Maybe a year ago, this number was just luckily very low for some reason or another, but I was hoping you could say a bit about it.

The other thing I also wanted to ask you is, could you elaborate a little bit on the sale of the stake in the Colonial pipeline. Because the context around the question is that the trading is clearly very important for Shell that has become more important for Shell as the years has gone by. And I can totally see how an individual pipeline or a pipeline system might not be the highest returning asset. So you could say, okay, part of the disposal program. At the same time, assets like that, I would imagine, are precisely the type of assets that really help the trading business. So there's probably some sort of trade-off there. And I was wondering how that type of consideration come into discussion about some of the disposals, particularly this one.

Sure. Thank you for that, Martijn. Do you want to take those two Sinead?

Happy to. Thanks, Martijn. Two very different questions, but as you say, into the nitty-gritty

of our numbers. On the underlying OpEx, just a couple of things are really flowing through there. What you're seeing, of course, is a combination of, as you say, inflation, although we're doing really well to eat inflation, there's also new assets coming in as well. So a lot of that is about phasing. So what you're seeing is the likes of LNG Canada coming in with the full OpEx coming in, of course, because it's also just started up. So you have a lot of those ramp-up costs. You have the same, of course, when you're -- with respect to Chemicals and Monaca, all coming through whilst the platforms are still or the assets are still ramping up as well. So that's two things that come through.

We've also been very, very focused -- sorry, on that as they ramp up, of course, you see those big costs hitting, but of course, you don't see the full operational performance yet. So that's one thing. You also have the same in terms of the divestments, there's also phasing around that. Of course, we've not seen the actual impact of all of the divestments coming through yet, so particularly the refinery and chemical plant in Singapore. We, of course, have cost as we handed those over and as we helped and the setup for the buyer the same with Nigeria. So those don't flow through yet as well.

So a little bit of that is phasing. And secondly, of course, is in terms of marketing, we've actually had a higher impact in terms of advertising or marketing, very, very focused knowing exactly where we want to make a difference, and that's what you're seeing in terms of some of the marketing performance come through actually very well where we've been able to push some of those premium products, and it's coming out in our actual numbers. But costs are if you do it year-on-year, they're actually the 9-month costs are 4% dying at the end of the day. So doing really well and continually driving the team towards that $5 billion to $7 billion target that we gave, which we have no doubt we will be into that range. It's just how fast and how hard we can go. That's the first one on OpEx.

And it's Colonial Pipeline that you asked. It's a great question, Martijn. We've had this discussion quite a few times about what do we need for our trading business. And from our trading side of things, you've got a bunch of traders who are very focused on the maximizing return and maximizing the use of capital, as you can imagine, which is rather helpful. From their perspective, they look at where are their touch points, where are their control points where they can maximize value. And for us, Colonial was not one of those. So it was just one that was in a long list of assets where they looked at it and said, I can put my capital elsewhere, that was really the rationale behind that, and you'll see small numbers of those come through where you can see us reallocating capital and that's everything about our story at the moment, as you know, is reallocating capital to that best return that we can get. They brought the opportunity to us. We managed to execute it this quarter.

And that's a good point. Indeed, it was the traders who brought that opportunity to us. Thank you, Sinead, and thanks for the question, Martijn. Luke, let's go to the next one, please.

Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

I have two, please. Firstly, on LNG Canada. I wondered if you could give any color on how you're managing the feed gas from Western Canada. So maybe just a rough split between your equity tight gas production versus grid supplies and your ability to shift from one to the other depending on prices?

And the second question is on Chemicals. I wondered if you could give an update on the restructuring of your chemicals business. I also understand that Monaca will have a turnaround in the fourth quarter. So what remains to be done in terms of works at Monaca?

Kim, I'll address both. I think on the first one, of course, we have had in the third quarter a number of days where AECO pricing went negative. And so to step back and remind you of the model, we actually use the Shell trading organization to source feedstock for our equity interest in LNG Canada. And we use on the other side, Shell's trading capability to be able to place those LNG cargo or equity LNG cargoes.

And so what our traders are doing are -- is looking at what is the best option to be able to create value for the enterprise. And so recently, we got up to roughly 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day capacity in Groundbirch, our Canadian feed gas. And we turned down quite a bit of it. We were running at around 70,000 to 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day because we could drive quite a bit of the flow coming out of third parties, and it was more -- it was better economics for us to do so.

And so I was out in Calgary just a few weeks ago and just sitting in that control room and seeing how those decisions to be able to shut off a well and to be able to source third-party supply are being made on the spot with the traders sitting by the side of the operator to maximize value. Exactly the model I would have liked to see and really looking at how we can create value through that integrated interface between asset and traders in the business.

So we'll hopefully continue to see that. And of course, that will ramp up with Train 2, which as Sinead has already said, actually is days away at the moment, and we look forward to the first LNG cargo from that.

To your second point around chemicals and chemicals update, indeed, I think you touched on Monaca's planned maintenance in the fourth quarter. More work to do to really get ourselves to the point where we are running at full capacity in that asset. But if -- if I maybe take that question, if you don't mind, Kim, and just step back for a moment. We said in Capital Markets Day 2025 that we have $45 billion of capital employed that is underperforming for us. $25 billion of that is sitting in chemicals and $20 billion is sitting in res.

On the chemical side, of course, the deep trough we find ourselves in means that what we have done in terms of the cost take at over the last few years is still not enough to get us into free cash flow neutrality. And I said at the last call that I instructed the team to take the next set of cash preservation measures, which they have now outlined, there's a clear plan to go after them. And we have a trajectory to take out a few hundred million dollars more over the coming months from both the OpEx and CapEx.

I don't expect that to sort of feature in Q4 already. And you'll remember, of course, Q4 in both chemicals and products is traditionally a weaker quarter for us. So I don't expect that to flow through. But I do hope to see it coming through in 2026.

On the other side of it, on the res side, in particular, power where we have the bulk of the capital, we have been doing a lot of work to be able to reshape the nature of the capital employed in that portfolio away from renewable generation capital-intensive assets towards more trading backed assets. You heard yesterday in the news, we will have announced the withdrawal from Atlantic Shores, the offshore wind project in the U.S. We've sold some of our B2C platforms in the U.S., including Inspire, and we have also sold out of Cleantech in India, 49% equity interest not to mention the Savion a joint ventures that Sinead mentioned in the video.

So lots of good progress to start to reallocate that capital and put it into the much more productive share that allows us to get back towards that 10% across our segments that we are aiming to get to. So hopefully, Kim, that gives you just chemicals, but a bit more broadly how we're thinking about that unproductive capital that we have.

Thank you for that question. Let me now turn Luke to you for the next question, please.

Our next caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC.

Two, please. Just going back to LNG Canada. Have there been any further discussions on Phase 2 of the project? And I just wanted to update where we are there. I saw us put on the top of the list for Carney's major project review. So any color that would be helpful.

And then just on the cancellation of the biofuels project. I'm trying to get a sense of how much of this was project specific? And how much of this was sort of related to your view on the end market and policy risk because obviously, there is elevated policy risk in a bunch of ways right now. The alternative for you is to just keep deploying more capital to the buyback which, obviously, the value proposition is fairly obvious. So just trying to understand how the investment committee is thinking about political risk across the various FIDs you have in the hopper?

Yes. Thanks for that, Biraj. I'll take the first one and then Sinead, if you want to address the second one. LNG Canada Phase 2, look, I think the biggest things we're keeping an eye on at the moment is the joint venture is working with the various contractors to be able to at least frame a quality decision for us at some point next year and see what that looks like.

What are some other important factors that we will have to sort of consider when we get to that decision point. Clearly, the support of both the federal and the provincial governments in Canada will be important. And I think as you rightly inferred there, we do see very strong support at the moment, both at the provincial and the federal side. So that's good news. We're very appreciative of that support, and that is enabling for a future investment.

But we're also looking carefully at the broader dynamics. You know our views that we are strong believers in the future of LNG demand through to 2040 and beyond. And we're also conscious of the significant investment that is taking place, the number of FIDs this year, in particular in the U.S. is unprecedented. You're talking of the 70 million tonnes per annum of capacity that's been FID-ed. 60 million is sitting in the U.S.

Now if we then think about future investment opportunities in liquefaction, it is about making sure that we are delivering to the demand destination from the right supply sources. Where Canada features is, of course, they have a transportation advantage vis-a-vis the U.S. it takes 10 days to ship from Canada to Asia versus 25% from the Gulf. So there's an advantage there. And that's why we're trying to understand what that overall balance of new supplies coming in, at least in the medium term and how that features in our broader calculus because not all supply is equal, and we want to make sure that we get access to the best supply for our customers and also cost advantage supply to make sure that they can create value for themselves as well from that. So lots to consider over the next several months there, Biraj. Sinead?

Thanks, Biraj. Two parts in the way to your question. So first and foremost, about the half a plant and the decision to stop. As you know, when we paused, we paused because we wanted to look at the ability, both internally to execute and ensure that we got something that was -- what we thought was the appropriate return. And then, of course, how we play out broader into the market. We took our time. It's a big decision to make and looked at it in every possible way and decided not at the moment to stop, right decision to be made.

We continue to be very bullish about trading in biofuels in the prompt. But yes, the supply and demand fundamentals should play out further. We need to see how they play. And of course, we do need stable policy. And that's the second part of your comment in a way was about how are we looking at political risk or just policy risk, you could go beyond that.

You mentioned the investment committee that we have, that we sit on and that we discuss -- we're discussing all of our projects, not only as a stand-alone opportunity as a capital allocation decision, but looking at them in the aggregate. So how much concentration risk do we have to different aspects. And it's exactly as you say, we're not just looking at country. We're looking at themes whether that might be around changing regulatory decisions, et cetera, and making sure that we understand what could go on and how bad could it get or how good could it get? So exactly that, cutting the data in every way we can to inform the best quality capital allocation decision.

Thanks for the question, Biraj. Luke, next question please.

Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research.

While I wonder what's the path back to profitability for the Chemicals business? And I'm wondering, is the Chemicals business -- should we consider it core for Shell going forward? That's my first question. And my quick follow-up. I don't know if you're able to talk to this. But obviously, one of your large peers had a different outcome with Venture Global, is there any recourse for Shell to revisit the arbitration that you had? What's the path forward for that as well?

Thanks for that, Doug. Let me take both of those, starting with the Venture Global one. I think first, just to say deeply disappointed in the outcome of the arbitration tribunal, and we have a lot to reflect on and to learn, if I'm honest, in terms of how we can do -- to do better, because we deeply believe in our case, and we need to be able to continue to explore all pathways to protect our rights. And that is something, of course, we're looking at. So let me just leave it there out for now.

On the path back to profitability for Chems, I would firstly just acknowledge once again the depth of the trough that we find ourselves in. And that's been just very challenging to navigate. We have already been working on a reduction of OpEx over a number of years, but it is just not enough. We were hoping that this is a typical cycle, and therefore, we would see the upside sooner than we are seeing it at the moment. We just don't see a line of sight to when that up cycle is going to come. And therefore, we have decided to really go after that cash preservation that I mentioned.

The path towards free cash flow neutrality is squeezing more out of the OpEx juice and more out of CapEx. And that's where my previous reference to hundreds of millions more that we would look to be able to take out in the coming months to be able to at least get back to -- to stopping the bleeding from that unit. And I know my team is very, very focused on doing that, the plan has been established and now we're going into execution mode to be able to affect that. Thanks for the questions, Doug. Luke, next questions, please.

Our next call is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

In the same vein, perhaps. Can you comment on renewables and where you see the role here, considering where the M&A market is, the PPA market, where do you see capital allocation and opportunities perhaps. Just quoting one example is not just a gigawatts, but it's also your JV in Brazil that's crying out for fresh equity injections. So how do you feel about adding more commitments into that overall, I suppose, low carbon area. And as a second brief mop-up question, could you give us an update on the Venezuela and Trinidad situation and how you so far have been dealing with that?

Let me take the second one and then ask Sinead to address the first one. On the second one, clearly, worrying. Our first focus is our staff and the well-being of our staff in case the situation escalates, which we hope it doesn't. Clearly, the Dragon license, which was granted by OFAC to the Trinidad and Tobago government, through which, of course, Shell would be implementing that license.

We still have to figure out exactly what's happening there. So we're assessing the situation closely, working with the government in Trinidad and Tobago and making sure that we are able to then determine how to move forward. But I'd say, very early days to be able to judge exactly how this will play out, and we are on a wait and see mode at the moment to see what happens. Sinead?

Indeed. And thank you, Christopher. In terms of renewables, as you remember, when we talked about renewables in Capital Markets Day, we talked about our role in it and how we would play. And there's two aspects to your question because you brought in both biofuels and, of course, the gigawatts, the electrons side of it. So looking at both in unison there.

In terms of the biofuels side, I talked a little bit about half of our view on let's see where supply and demand goes to into the future and about where we see the sort of trading in the prompt you alluded to, of course, a joint venture or a company that we are invested in, in Brazil as well. Of course, it's a listed company, so I always look to the company to speak for itself.

But just priority is there for them to look at really all of the different options that they have in terms of the turnaround and to ensure it's value accretive, and we see their management team doing a superb job on that as well. So making sure it's aligned with all of our goals as well.

Moving back on to the electron side for a moment, and you talked about the gigawatts aspect there. What you can see us doing, of course, and what we talked about was moving from being 80% in producing assets or solar wind, different aspects like that, and 20% in trading and shifting that focus between now and sort of 2030 much more towards 20% into the producing assets and 80% into the trading side. That continues to move forward. While talk to a number of those different actual capital reallocation that's occurred, whether that was around Cleantech that he mentioned, and Savion, of course, the opportunity where we actually diluted our stake in some of the producing fields of the solar fields and actually kept the electrons. And that's about really where is our strategy going to. It's making sure that from a strategy point of view, we're very much focused on considering how can trading maximize the value from the flow, and that's what you see us doing. We continue to look for opportunities in things like gas-fired combined cycle power plants as well. You saw us do one of those last year. And of course, we continue with some of the battery investments we're doing as well. So that process continues and really good progress, I would say, well.

Yes. Thanks, Sinead. Christopher, thank you for those questions. Luke, next question, please. .

Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations on all of the rejuvenation of your E&P portfolio through all of the FIDs and stake increases in the last year. I wanted to say really on that topic. And I wanted to ask you, what do you think is the scale of inorganic investment that you'll need to continue this 1% hydrocarbon production growth well into the next decade? And if there's any area in your portfolio and particularly that you would like to deepen in scale?

Yes. Thank you, Michele, for that question. I think -- thank you for the recognition on what already has been, I think, a successful strategy of bolt-ons, focusing on areas where we do have competitive advantage. And actually, in all of them, where we ourselves operate and so it is deepening of our existing interests. I mentioned earlier, some of the potential headwinds that we see coming into 2026 on oil prices, for example.

And of course, we have been positioning the company over the last few years through cost reductions, performance enhancements, portfolio high grading. For the specific moment to be able to actually be resilient through a potential downturn. And what we have been doing, of course, is preferentially allocating distribution capital to our buybacks. And so in a world where there might be softness in the future, I think it creates real opportunities for us, both on the buyback side, but also to look at other inorganic opportunities, which, by the way, over the last several months, we have seen more of those come through our desk, albeit none of them at an attractive enough level to be able to cross that high bar. But I really hope we get to see some good opportunities come through in 2026.

I'm not going to give a particular scale of opportunity because at the end of the day, what we have said and what I've said in the past that we've maintained is we want to be value driven. We want to look at the right opportunities and make sure that we are creating shareholder value using free cash flow per share accretion as an important north star for us. And so we will be pragmatic in the approach we take as we look at these opportunities. We know that between now and 2030, the requirement to be able to sort of maintain liquids flat we've, by and large, we're almost there. So this is not about 2030 where we have high confidence. It's about building that funnel for the 2035-plus where we indicated in the Capital Markets Day chart that there was a gap of somewhere in the range of 350,000 barrels a day and which we hope to be able to fill organically and where it makes sense inorganically. And so we will continue to position ourselves for that and continue to make sure that we create -- or that we make the best choices from a capital allocation perspective on behalf of our shareholders.

Indeed. And I think that's the opportunity that we have well because actually, we're in the best place to do it in the sense of a very healthy balance sheet at the moment. So gearing is healthy, as you know. I mean, we've talked about it before, it's below 19% as of today. And of course, it came down this quarter. It does oscillate up and down. And that's what we talked about. We're very comfortable with that ability to take it up or down. And you've seen us leaning on the balance sheet from time to time. You've seen us leaning on the balance sheet sometimes for distributions. This quarter, we didn't have to, but we have done so in previous quarters. We're very comfortable with that

And if you look at where our gearing has actually been, it's actually range between sort of 10% and 30% over time. So comfortable where it is today. Those moments when we have to lean in it, we can lean on it for a variety of things, whether it's distribution, as you said or inorganic. And of course, we will see debt as a result move. And actually, I would expect, of course, our gearing to our debt, net debt to go up next quarter, largely because what do I see? I see that sort of Q4 being one of those quarters where we always have some unusuals coming through.

So we've had really strong performance from our Upstream and Integrated Gas business. The performance is superb this quarter, and that's actually helped us to be able to deliver on just bringing that net debt down. But of course, for Q4, I think everyone's getting boring of -- bored of me talking about this, but we have those unusuals that come through. So those unusuals are quite a broad range, but they add up to several billion, whether it's the German and U.S. biofuels and certificates, the emission certificates payments that come through the German mineral oil tax, et cetera, but it adds up to a couple of billion, of course, next quarter.

And of course, beyond that, what we also see is the ability to have some of those opportunities, which help push up our CapEx levels a little bit into that quarter. And of course, at the same time, we see downstream typically being a little bit weaker in Q4. The data book says it all. You can go back and look at the last couple of years and see Q4 coming through as well on that, and it's really twofold. It's two different stories. One is chemicals and products, which is normally trading-related where it's a bit weaker into the quarter. And of course, we have a few turnarounds which were mentioned earlier by one of your colleagues will also hit in Q4 as well.

But then, of course, on our marketing. Marketing has been doing superbly well. But of course, Q2 and Q3 are driving season. So it is seasonality coming into Q4, where you would see it be a little bit weaker. So I look forward to in Q4 making sure that our performance is good, understanding that those items will drive down some of the cash flow and looking forward to seeing whether what opportunities we have as well, including potentially working capital build, depending on where the macro is, but that links back exactly to where you were going to, which is we have the balance sheet available to actually lean on for whether it's distribution or whether it's to lean on for inorganic opportunities as well. So yes.

Thank you very much, Sinead. And thank you for the question, Michele. Let's go to the next question, please, Luke.

Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS.

A couple of questions. One, just following up to date on the fourth quarter. Thanks for taking us through all those building blocks, particularly on the Integrated Gas because in an earlier question, at this time, you're sounding quite conservative. And yet I look liquefaction volumes should be up. Why would the ramp-up of those volumes not help you optimize margins in the fourth quarter? Are there other things in integrated gas we should be aware of? And can you just remind us where we are on the hedging impact there and the potential headwind there that was inside these numbers this quarter?

And then second question on Namibia, there were some headlines earlier in the summer that you're expecting to resume exploration drilling next year in the midyear. So -- can you talk a little bit about what areas you're thinking about targeting? And maybe just more generally, your willingness to add more capital to this country, given what you know so far about the basin.

Josh, I'll take the second one and ask Sinead to address the first one. On Namibia, indeed, we -- like we said in the past, we had -- we like the volumes we found. We were challenged by the high gas oil ratios and of course, just the movability of the fluid. And so -- what we have also been doing is just spending time to really understand what our appraisal program has resulted with the subsurface data points we have, not just ours, but also leaning on what others have been doing in the basin to be able to maximize our knowledge set.

We continue to have appetite, of course, to invest in Namibia, but it's going to have to be at a level where it meets our high hurdles for investment opportunities. And so we are very willing to invest in an appraisal well for a new horizon if we have an investable case for it, and that's what the team is assessing at the moment. And we should be in a position to be able to decide that in the coming weeks.

More broadly, I would say, we continue to look at those options for basins where we think we can be differentiated in the way that we are able to play in that basin. For example, in deepwater, where we can leverage our knowledge of the North Atlantic to be able to potentially create opportunities like the well we're drilling at the moment in Sao Tome and like other wells we're drilling as well in the Gulf of America. So looking forward to continuing to see what comes out of that. Sinead?

Indeed. And thank you, Josh. So back to Integrated Gas. No, you're absolutely right in the sense that when we talk about the normal, we're always talking about whether we can deliver higher operational performance and then what opportunities we can find in the market as well beyond that. So when I look at Q4, indeed, we're looking at strong operational performance. So we're looking at the team doing what they've said they're going to do and making sure they continue on the ramp-up of LNG Canada and other assets. But then we're looking at what do we see in terms of the availability of those lengths, so hopefully, we will have some. But in terms of the arbs and what are the opportunities to be able to trade around those.

What I was mentioning earlier on was that we're seeing some of it at the moment, but less in Q4 than we did in Q3. So there is that sort of notice board. Those are closing at the moment, and you can talk about Brent versus Henry Hub and also it's a fun item there, but it is closing a little bit.

You also mentioned then the impact in terms of the runoff by the way, in terms of the losses of the legacy positions. So I think I've positioned probably back almost a year ago, but I said we'd run through 2025. We're still seeing those legacy positions expire over this year. That impact is less pronounced than it was at the start of the year. That's just some really good work from the trading team in terms of effective risk management, but you will see that in Q4 as well.

So looking to see what can we actually capture upside in the portfolio in terms of both net length and what's in the market as well? But of course, there is weakness versus downstream versus where integrated gas is. So as I outlined earlier, we're expecting to see downstream being weaker than it was in Q3 versus integrated gas, where we would not see it be able to capture some of the opportunities that we have seen this quarter, but we're looking at strong operational performance as well. So it's a tale of two halves there.

Thanks, Sinead. Thanks for the questions, as well there, Josh. Luke, let's go to the next question, please.

Our next caller is Alastair Syme from Citi.

While coming back on the portfolio because it seems you get a lot of questions on this now. Look, I've made the observation that the industry as a whole looks like it's delevered in the cycle. So I get your point about looking for opportunities in a down cycle. But I'm wondering if you think this down cycle needs to be quite deep for those opportunities to really emerge that you need?

And then the sort of the second part of this is do you think these new positions -- or do you think there'll be new positions in geographies? Or do you think that ultimately Shell can add more value by deepening in existing positions?

Alastair, thank you for those questions. Look, I think who knows exactly how things play out. But what is clear is if I compare where we have been over the last few months to say, one or two years ago. We are getting a lot more proposals that are interesting, though, like I said earlier, not yet meeting that high bar that we hold ourselves to. That tells you that expectations of breakeven points around some of these transactions have come down from what maybe we had seen a year, 1.5 years ago.

How far they come down? Question mark. We are, of course, looking at long-term strategic imperatives. We see ourselves as we look into the 2030s, we continue to see an important role for crude, and we continue to see ourselves one thing to have a portfolio that's able to serve our customers as we do as well for LNG. And so what we will continue to do is look at those opportunities that create long-term value, and they need to be at a price point that is interesting enough for us.

Now exactly where we play typically, I'd say we want to look at where we can create incremental value beyond what the current owners can do, in particular, if you want to have to pay a premium for it. And so -- and that's why I talk about the high bar partly it's because of the price point and partly because it is not easy to be able to justify M&A, in particular, when it has to compare where it has to compete against the alternative of buybacks.

And so what we're trying to do is to keep that tension in. And if it is affiliated with one of our existing positions, then there's much more likelihood we can create incremental value out of it, in particular now that we have really addressed some of the performance issues in the strength of our portfolio, like in deepwater, like an integrated gas, like in marketing. Those areas where we believe we have a comparative advantage are firing on not all cylinders yet but on many cylinders. And while we know we have a lot more to do, we think we can now create more value out of some of those assets that others hold than maybe what they hold. The question is whether we can get to a price point that's attractive enough to transact. Let me ask you, Luke, then for the next question please.

Our next caller is Peter Low from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

And maybe just one more on Upstream. You took FID on the HI gas project in Nigeria in the quarter. It's the sort of project we don't necessarily have great visibility on from the outside. I was wondering if you could give some examples of any other projects you're maturing at the moment that could potentially reach FID in the next 12 months or so?

Thank you for that question. I'll say a few words and please pitch in Sinead as well if you want to. So HI is one of those projects which will feed into Nigeria LNG our equity interest, and there's 1 or 2 of those behind as well that we are looking to mature to be able to grow the potential feedstock into Nigeria LNG. That, of course, builds on the Bonga North opportunity. And just even staying within that space, there is the potential one day for Bonga Southwest, which would be a new FPSO in Nigeria and therefore creating an exciting opportunity for us to grow there.

In places like Brazil, what we're seeing at the moment is the opportunity to be able to develop a new hub like Gato do Mato, which we FID-ed recently, but also given the massive license that sits in the 2P field, as an example, there are opportunities there to be able to look beyond and that's what the team is looking at in Mero, in 2P, what can we do to be able to maximize production out of those. And those could be very interesting opportunities to tie back.

There are opportunities as well that we continue to mature in the Gulf of America, tiebacks to existing facilities. One specific facility we're looking at how we can beef up is Appomattox. We have ullage there. We have capacity, which we are in the process of developing some opportunities to be able to go after. Ursa and Mars are other opportunities we look at.

And then you can go to places like Oman, where we continue to look to bring some FIDs through -- they're more localized FIDs. We're talking sub 20,000 barrels per day each one. But as you add them up, they are part of that funnel that I referred to earlier, which when you add it all up, it gets you to the 1 million barrels plus per -- of oil equivalent per day at those sub-$35 breakevens. And so Peter, there are many of those opportunities that we continue to be able to bring into the portfolio. And to be honest, that create the most value for our shareholders at the end of the day. Anything you want to add, Sinead?

I think that was well.

Thank you. Luke, let's go to the next question, please.

Our next caller is Ryan Todd from Piper Sandler.

Maybe first, your operational execution, particularly in the Upstream and Integrated Gas business continue to be really impressive. If we think about it in context of the outlook that you've provided to the end of the decade and even beyond, you've laid out a plan that allows you to largely hold volumes flat to 2030, if you think about how well your assets seem to be performing and the success that you've had in getting more out of your existing asset base, particularly in places like the goal from Brazil, how does this inform your confidence in the ability to meet or maybe even exceed the plan that you've laid out?

And then maybe one on LNG. If you think about global gas and LNG demand in the coming years, you've been optimistic, at least over the longer term and the demand will respond at least at a price to growing capacity additions. LNG demand this year out of some of the big Asian players has been a bit disappointing. How are you thinking about global demand, particularly in Asian markets? And what are some of the moving pieces that you're watching there?

Thanks for that, Ryan. I'll try to address both pretty quickly. LNG, what I would say is, of course, you're going to go through the cycles. You saw strength in Europe this year. You're seeing weakness in Asia after quite some stock building and weather patterns. What are we looking at? We're looking at new supply projects and what that means for the overall complex in the latter part of the decade. We continue to see positive signals on transportation in particular, big marine shipowners are looking more and more for LNG as a solution and, of course, trucking.

And we're looking at what happens in the broader geopolitical space. Russia, how that plays vis-a-vis China and others. And so we are well positioned given the breadth of our portfolio of supply points and our multiple customer touch points to be able to navigate that space and, of course, to weather any storms while looking at the long term to build the portfolio that we think we can continue to lead in as the premier LNG player in our sector.

On the Upstream, look, we continue to make progress in our portfolio. As I said, I'm proud of the team, but I wouldn't, at this stage, yet say that we are at the full potential of this company. We still leave money on the table, and we are relentlessly going after that, whether it is in the -- in our turnarounds, whether it is in the reliability of our assets, whether it is in areas like water injection, we have more to do. And the more we can derisk that, of course, the less we need new molecules to be able to address the 2030 ambition.

I will not, at this stage, sort of make a prediction as to where we get to by 2030. But what I will say is I'm very pleased with the progress we're making across the patch to be able to deliver on that objective, and to start to position ourselves for the latter -- for the next decade as well. Thank you for those questions. We can go to the next question, please, Luke.

Our final caller today is Mark Wilson from Jefferies.

A lot of emphasis on allocating capital to the best return. So I'd like to ask you about the U.K. North Sea business combination and your forward plans with that? Is -- do you consider that an investment area? And obviously, combined with that expectations for fiscal changes in the U.K. and how strategic you see that U.K. North Sea portfolio?

Yes. I'd say on the U.K., firstly, excited by the Adura JV and hope that kicks off before end of the year. So good progress there. Look, at the end of the day, we have been very clear. When we invest in the upstream. We're looking for predictable and progressive tax systems that allow us to be able to make sure that the investment we are making is one that we can see the returns on. And the reliability of that fiscal setup is key to us.

Now what Adura will do is, I think it takes the best of both. It takes the best of Equinor the best of Shell, puts it together has a nice development runway with the projects that are already sanctioned, but also has a great asset base to be able to go for follow-up opportunities if the conditions are right. But the conditions need to be right to attract that marginal dollar of capital. And so without speculating on where the budget goes in November, we continue to be hopeful that the fiscal situation is improved. And at the end of the day, that predictability and reliability come to play so that we can make the investments that allow for indigenous production to be able to serve the needs of the U.K. longer term.

And just to add on that a while because the second part of that about capital allocation as well. So I think as we've discussed previously, the whole idea of capital allocation, you emphasized very clearly earlier, we have decisions on where we put the capital, whether it's organic opportunities, inorganic opportunities, whether we look to share buybacks, et cetera. And that decision criteria is key to us, the framework we use, which is really where Mark was going to at the end of this question as well.

So we do look at both the performance of the company in the quarter, but we also look at the macro and where it's going to as well. And of course, that's sort of the decision criteria when we look at the buyback versus actually putting capital to some of our assets as well.

We keep coming back to the fact that on a distribution policy perspective, 40% to 50%, as you said, is sacrosanct. And we want to remain within that range and that's what we will do. And of course, then we look at how do we fund it, whether it's the free cash flow or whether we are looking to lean on the balance sheet, as we've said. So we have a large range of different capital allocation decisions as we go through, but always focused on what we've said consistently, 40% to 50% of distribution is sacrosanct, and we look forward to growing the business as we can.

Thanks, Sinead. And thank you, Mark, for that question as well. I think we're at the end. So thank you all for your questions and for making time to join the call. In conclusion, we delivered a strong set of results despite the continued volatility we see. Our strong delivery this quarter has enabled us to enhance another $3.5 billion of buybacks. And as we close out this year, we will continue to focus on performance, discipline and simplification. Wishing everyone a pleasant end of the week. Thank you all again for joining us today.