Oil & Gas Corner

Thursday, 2026-10-29 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Shell and TotalEnergies post their best quarterly profits since 2022 on the war premium in crude and record refining margins. Shell's net profit nearly doubled year-on-year to $10.81 billion, beating the $10.33 billion analysts expected, and the board lifted the quarterly buyback to $5 billion from $3 billion; TotalEnergies also reported sharply higher results Thursday. Both cite a quarter spent with Brent trading above $100 a barrel on the still-unresolved Strait of Hormuz disruption. Exxon and Chevron report Friday. CNBC · Baird Maritime

Upstream — exploration & production

TotalEnergies guides Q3 hydrocarbon output to 2.45–2.50 million boe/d, growth of more than 4% year-on-year once the Middle East impact is stripped out. The company's mid-October trading update also flagged integrated LNG results "up sharply," driven by a roughly 20% quarter-on-quarter rise in average LNG prices, and a Refining & Chemicals cash-flow gain of about $2 billion versus Q2. TotalEnergies via Business Wire

Nothing else material from the majors, the NOCs or the shale patch crossed the wire in the window.

Midstream — pipelines, LNG & shipping

A quiet day on the water and in the pipe — nothing new on tanker rates, pipeline tariff fights or export-terminal milestones beyond what this week has already covered.

Downstream — refining, fuels & chemicals

Shell's global indicative refining margin jumped to a record $42 a barrel in the third quarter, up from $24 in Q2. Refinery utilisation ran as high as 97% over the quarter, the company said, as it also lifted its integrated gas production estimate — the same tight-diesel, high-utilisation backdrop that has driven US Gulf Coast and European cracks to records this autumn. Hargreaves Lansdown

The Chatter

An earnings day, not a commentary one — nothing freely accessible and clearly dated to the last 24 hours turned up from the usual roster (Doomberg, Commodity Context, Super-Spiked, Javier Blas, Art Berman, Goehring & Rozencwajg, Energy Aspects/RBN Energy's public notes, Eric Nuttall and the energy-fintwit regulars) beyond pieces already covered in recent editions.