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**Operator:**  
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.

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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 2 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. Thank you.

### Q&A Section

**Wael Sawan:**  
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?

**Operator:**  
Our first caller is Matt Lofting from JPMorgan.

**Matthew Lofting:**  
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 IG margins and performance are slower burn and perhaps still to come 2Q plus as ice lags and monetizing dislocations enabled by the working cap feeds through.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 the Qatari 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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Michele Della Vigna from Goldman Sachs.

**Michele Della Vigna:**  
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 destructions, perhaps in areas where prices have been especially strong like jet fuel across your global business.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Alastair Syme from Citi.

**Alastair Syme:**  
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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Doug Leggate from Wolfe Research.

**Douglas George Blyth Leggate:**  
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.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Douglas George Blyth Leggate:**  
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.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 Gorman:**  
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 $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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Lydia Rainforth from Barclays.

**Lydia Rainforth:**  
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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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 a 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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Alejandro Vigil from Santander.

**Alejandro Vigil:**  
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.

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

**Sinead Gorman:**  
Sure, happy to.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Josh Stone from UBS.

**Joshua Eliot Stone:**  
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, as far as I'm aware that's backfilling Prelude, so I don't believe there's a domestic route for that project, but just curious as to what you're seeing there?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Christopher Kuplent from Bank of America.

**Christopher Kuplent:**  
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 called it the sugar rush of giving the market a quick increase in dividends. But what 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?

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

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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 it 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.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Lucas Herrmann from BNP Paribas Exane.

**Lucas Herrmann:**  
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 -- I'm talking about LNG now, or 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 a 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.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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 Qatargas, 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, JKM 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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Biraj Borkhataria from RBC.

**Biraj Borkhataria:**  
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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
Thank you very much for that, Biraj. I'll take the second question and then Sinead, if you want to touch on the group's 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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
One add 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 liftings 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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Martijn Rats from Morgan Stanley.

**Martijn Rats:**  
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 a 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 really start 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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 exports 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 [ bans ] are not the way to go. And so that is very much our base case that there will not be any export bans.

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Kim Fustier from HSBC.

**Kim Fustier:**  
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 affected 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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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.

**Sinead Gorman:**  
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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Maurizio Carulli from Quilter Cheviot.

**Maurizio Carulli:**  
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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 out. 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.

**Operator:**  
Our next caller is Jason Gabelman from TD Cowen.

**Jason Gabelman:**  
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?

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 ARC 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?

**Sinead Gorman:**  
Jason, I'll keep it short. First of all, indeed, our renewables or R&ES 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.

**Operator:**  
Our final caller is Mark Wilson from Jefferies.

**Mark Wilson:**  
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.

**Wael Sawan:**  
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 Strait. 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.