Shell on Thursday reported $6.92 billion in adjusted first-quarter earnings, beating the LSEG analyst consensus of $6.1 billion, hours after Brent crude slid below $100 a barrel for the first time since the Iran war began on Feb. 28. The British supermajor's profit ran nearly a quarter ahead of expectations even as the war premium that drove it began to drain out of the market on a report that Washington and Tehran were nearing a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the fighting.

Shell shares dipped 2 percent in London Thursday morning despite the beat, and the company cut the pace of its quarterly buyback to $3 billion from $3.5 billion, signaling management is planning around prices on the way down. Brent for July fell 1.85 percent to $99.40 a barrel; U.S. West Texas Intermediate for June rose 1.85 percent to $93.21.

What Shell delivered

Adjusted earnings compared with $5.58 billion a year ago and $3.26 billion in the final quarter of 2025. The board lifted the dividend 5 percent to $0.3906 per share. Net debt rose to $52.6 billion, up from $45.7 billion at year-end.

"Shell delivered strong results enabled by our relentless focus on operational performance in a quarter marked by unprecedented disruption in global energy markets," Chief Executive Wael Sawan said in a statement.

Maurizio Carulli, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot Investment Management, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" the debt line was the lone soft spot. "Shell's Q1 results are better than expectations, both market expectations and my own expectations," Carulli said, attributing most of the rise to a working-capital effect from higher oil prices lifting the carrying value of inventories.

The price reversal

U.S. crude plunged as much as 15 percent on Wednesday, to $88 a barrel, and Brent fell as much as 11 percent, to $96, after Axios reported that U.S. and Iranian officials were working on a 14-point document to end the war and frame further nuclear talks. Both benchmarks pared losses after President Trump told the New York Post it was "too soon" to prepare to sign a peace deal; WTI closed down 7 percent at $95.08 and Brent settled 7.8 percent lower at $101.27. Oil remained more than 65 percent higher year-to-date, NBC News reported.

Trump on Wednesday warned in a Truth Social post that Iran would be bombed "at a much higher level" if it walked away. The U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, he wrote, would lift and the strait reopen "assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is perhaps a big assumption." If not, "the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before."

The disruption since Feb. 28 — what the International Energy Agency has called the biggest energy security threat in history — has driven crude up roughly 40 percent and reduced Strait of Hormuz traffic to a trickle. NBC News reported that on Tuesday only one ship crossed the strait and on Wednesday none did, against a normal flow of hundreds of vessels a day carrying more than 20 percent of the world's oil supply.

On the Street

For equity desks, the question is how much of Shell's quarter was a one-off. Scott Chronert, Citi's U.S. equity strategist, told CNBC that the path of crude is the variable that matters most for the rest of the market. "The duration of the conflict and the implication that has for higher oil prices for longer is a big deal as it pertains to future growth expectations for many parts of the market, as well as how it influences the Fed thinking in terms of the interest rate dynamic," Chronert said.

Shell's London-listed stock has gained about 15 percent year-to-date, lagging BP, TotalEnergies, Exxon Mobil and Chevron. The company in April agreed to buy Canadian producer ARC Resources for $16.4 billion including net debt and leases, a Montney shale deal Sawan called "a high-quality, low-cost and top quartile low carbon intensity producer."

The counterpoint

For consumers, the math has run the other way. The average U.S. retail gasoline price topped $4.50 a gallon for the first time since July 2022 shortly before Wednesday's Axios report, NBC News reported, with the nationwide average of $4.54 within 50 cents of the $5.02 all-time high set in June 2022. Pump prices are up more than 50 percent since the war began, and the same jet-fuel surge that fattened Shell's refining margins has rippled through bankrupt carriers and shipping lines. Marc Sievers, the former U.S. ambassador to Oman, told CNBC's "Access Middle East" Wednesday that "The immediate focus has been on a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing all of this international commerce and energy to flow smoothly, tankers full of oil and so forth that have been blocked up, and that there would be no toll imposed by the Iranian IRGC on tankers to pass" — a reminder that the deal that erases Shell's price tailwind is the one most welcomed downstream of the wellhead.

Iran's Foreign Affairs Ministry told ISNA on Wednesday that the U.S. proposal was under review and would be conveyed to mediator Pakistan, after Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner left Islamabad last month without a deal. Shell's second quarter, and the next gallon at the pump, will be priced off the answer.