The Shell share price hit another all-time high this week as the company continued its positive run.
The firm, already the largest by market capitalisation on the London Stock Exchange, saw its share price jump to a then all-time high of 2,832p on Tuesday morning, after chief Wael Sawan said the company was “undervalued”.
The rally has continued today. The Shell share price has hit another all-time high above 2,860p. The jump followed additional comments from its former chief Ben van Beurden yesterday at a summit in Switzerland.
Van Beurden, who led Shell between 2014 and 2022, said the company’s valuation gap between its London listing and a potential New York one is a “major issue”.
He added that the US was a more favourable environment for traditional energy companies like Shell, an issue that was “increasingly” becoming a problem for European-domiciled firms.
Van Beurden was also direct in defending his successor’s decision to dilute Shell’s energy transition targets, including dropping a pledge to reduce net carbon intensity by 45 per cent by 2035.
“To just waffle and bullshit that this is all happening while it isn’t would not be correct … I completely understand what he did and I would completely support it.”
Though Sawan has said the firm is looking at all options, it is understood that the group is unlikely to consider any such a major move until this time next year at the earliest, when it is scheduled to finish its current two-year “sprint” period.
To that extent, London is on something of a two-year notice period for the company, which ranked just behind US supermajor Exxon in 2023 earnings for the ‘big four’ oil and gas producers.