Oil giants hope to bounce back from impairments in second-quarter results

Both Shell and BP will hope to turn a page on recently announced billion-pound hits as they try to steady investors’ nerves.

BP especially will be hoping that it can break a more than three-month long losing streak on the stock market.

Despite a short-lived rally in June, the company’s shares are now down more than 15% compared with their 2024 peak in the first half of April.

Earlier this month the London-listed oil giant revealed that it had taken a hit of between one and two billion dollars (£781 million to £1.6 billion) from onerous contracts. This included an impairment from its plans to review its German refining business.

The business at the time also revealed that lower margins in refining mean that its second-quarter results – set to be revealed on Tuesday – will face an additional hit of 500 million to 700 million US dollars (£391 million to £547 million).

Investors will hope that by announcing its bad news at the start of the month, it can allow BP to focus on more positive news on July 30.

Analysts expect the business to report an underlying replacement cost profit of 2.54 billion US dollars (£1.97 billion), down from 2.59 billion US dollars (£2.01 billion) a year ago.

Shell also revealed a hit of up to two billion US dollars (£1.6 billion) for suspending work on a Dutch biofuel plant and selling a Singapore refinery.

The Rotterdam site is meant to produce 820,000 tonnes of biofuels every year by 2025, but the suspension now puts that at risk.

Yet despite this hit Shell’s shares have not been quite as sluggish in recent months as its London rival BP.

In the same period that BP’s shares have fallen more than 15%, Shell’s share price is only down less than 5%.

In the same update earlier this month the business said that integrated gas production will hit guidance of between 940,000 and 980,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Analysts expect that Shell’s results on August 1 will show adjusted earnings of 6.01 billion US dollars (£4.67 billion) in the second quarter, up from 5.07 billion US dollars (£3.94 billion) a year earlier.