Shell has increased its multibillion-pound debt pile to continue handing investors bumper payouts despite reporting a drop in annual profits on weaker oil prices.
The oil company reported a 22% fall in adjusted earnings to $18.5bn (£13.6bn) for 2025, down from $23.7bn in 2024, owing to steadily falling global oil market prices.
Its earnings for the last quarter of the year were $3.25bn, missing analyst expectations of $3.5bn and well below the $5.4bn reported for the previous three months.
Shell continued to offer record-breaking shareholder payouts while growing its debt pile. Its net debt climbed to $45.7bn by the end of the year, or almost 21% of its total capital, up from $41.2bn at the end of September, as oil prices continued to slide.
The company handed its shareholders a 4% increase in dividends and $3.5bn worth of share buybacks – its 17th consecutive quarter of at least $3bn of buybacks.
The international price for crude fell below $60 a barrel for the first time in almost five years at the end of 2025 as political leaders began to inch towards a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, which could increase the glut in the global market if western sanctions were lifted on Russian exports.
Overall, oil prices slumped by almost 20% in 2025, marking the biggest annual loss since the Covid pandemic, and the first time that the oil market has recorded three consecutive years of annual losses.
Wael Sawan, Shell’s chief executive, said the year showed “accelerated momentum” for the business, with “strong operational and financial performance across Shell”.
“We generated free cash flow of $26bn, made significant progress in focusing our portfolio and reached $5bn of cost savings since 2022, with more to come,” Sawan added.
