Europe’s biggest oil companies are poised to rein in billions of dollars of shareholder payouts in the coming weeks, signalling a turn to austerity as they brace for lower oil prices and move to protect their balance sheets.
Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni and Equinor are expected by analysts to collectively slow their shareholder distributions by 10-25 per cent when they report full-year results this month, all through reductions in stock buybacks.
The European majors have in recent years ploughed more than half their cash flow into repurchasing shares, shrinking the number in circulation and supporting their prices. The industry has reduced its share count by about a fifth since 2021, according to UBS.
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