Shell profits double amid Ukraine war price surges

LONDON — Global energy giant Shell said Thursday that its annual profits doubled to a record high last year as oil and natural gas prices soared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

London-based Shell Plc posted adjusted earnings of $39.9 billion for 2022 in its financial results for the final three months of the year. Adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter, which exclude one-time items and fluctuations in the value of inventories, rose by 50%, to $9.8 billion, from the same period a year earlier.

Shell is the latest oil company to report bumper profits, which risks reigniting public anger that the fossil fuel industry do more to offset high energy bills for households and small businesses as well as cut climatechanging carbon emissions.

U.S.-based Exxon Mobil also posted record annual profits days earlier, while U.K. rival BP and France’s TotalEnergies reported huge quarterly profits last year.

Shell also is raising its dividend payout by 15% and buying back $4 billion worth of shares — moves that underline the tension between energy company shareholders seen as reaping big profits and consumers weighed down by higher costs for heating their homes and filling up their cars.

To ease the pain on households and consumers, the European Union and individual countries such as Britain and Italy have imposed windfall taxes on energy companies, and President Joe Biden has raised the idea of a war profit tax.

Shell expected to pay an extra $2.3 billion in taxes to cover the EU and U.K. windfall levies for 2022.

The company said it paid out $26 billion to shareholders last year in dividends and share buybacks.