Shell profit drops by almost a third

Shell's second-quarter net profit tumbled by almost a third on Thursday, dragged down by a drop in oil prices, lower gas trading results and outage-related losses from its chemicals operations, but it still easily beat analysts’ forecasts.

- Reuters

The oil major, meanwhile, said it would maintain the pace of its share buyback programme at $3.5 billion over the next three months, the 15th consecutive quarter of at least $3 billion.

The company’s shares were up around 2% by 0948 GMT, outperforming a 0.3% rise in a broader index of European energy companies.