Shell latest oil giant to see profits surge due to Iran war impact

Feels like we keep seeing the same pattern play out every time there’s a major geopolitical shock.

Supply gets constrained, oil spikes, trading desks make a killing, and then you get headlines about record profits while households are told bills are going up again. The part that stands out here is how much of it is not even from pumping more oil, but from trading margins widening and volatility itself becoming the profit engine.

At the same time, the windfall tax debate always feels a bit stuck in the same place too. Applied only to UK extraction while most of the earnings are global. So politically it looks like action, but structurally it barely touches where the profits are actually coming from.

What is harder to ignore is how fragile the pricing system is when a single chokepoint like Hormuz can swing Brent from the 70s to 120 and back again in the same breath. That kind of volatility feeds straight into everything downstream, from fuel to electricity expectations, even if the physical supply disruption is partial or temporary.

Hard to see this ending any differently unless energy markets become less exposed to these shocks, which is a long way off.