Stock Spotlight: Shell reaps the rewards of decade-high oil prices

Energy transition risks

Soaring gas and oil prices driven by supply chain issues and the invasion of Ukraine have propelled the outperformance of Shell shares this year, but questions about the long-term prospects of the oil giant remain.

Europe's biggest oil company reported record profits in the first quarter of 2022, totalling $9.1bn - far higher than the $3.2bn reported in the same period of last year. Shell is forecast to make around $35bn of profits this year, up by $15bn from the previous year. In the stock markets, the landscape for Shell today looks very different than it did in 2020, when oil demand collapsed and drove shares to a 25-year low. In April of that year, the price of US oil dropped below $0 per barrel, meaning that oil producers were paying buyers to take it off their hands.  RLAM slams Shell clim...