What’s Going On Here?Shell, Europe’s biggest energy company, reported humongous quarterly profit on Thursday after coming over all demure only weeks ago. What Does This Mean?Shell put pride aside earlier this month to warn investors that its run of record-breaking quarterly profit was about to fizzle out, but turns out it could’ve been more sure of itself. Okay, Shell’s gas and renewables division made 38% less profit after supply issues took a toll, and its chemicals and oil trading business tanked by 62% on the back of less-than-desirable margins. But the hulking energy giant still wrangled an overall profit of $9.5 billion last quarter, double its total from this time last year and still its second-highest quarterly profit ever. That brings Shell’s total profit to a brawny $30.5 billion this year, making its $31 billion record from back in 2008 look easy to beat (tweet this). Why Should I Care?The bigger picture: Someone tell them about the recession.
Not to be shown up, France’s own goliath TotalEnergies announced record-breaking profit of its own on Thursday, and shareholders will be all too happy that oil companies are bucking the whole hurtling-toward-a-global-recession trend. Shell, for one, plans to buy back another $4 billion of shares over the next three months to bring the year’s total to $18.5 billion, and is set to beef dividends up by 15% too. Still, oil companies are hardly flying under the radar with these results, and that will only increase calls for governments to impose more windfall taxes and put a stop to those colossal figures.
Zooming out: The ECB won’t let it be.
Those hot-to-touch energy prices are only exacerbating Europe’s spiraling prices. The European Central Bank, then, is bringing out the even bigger guns: it hiked interest rates by 0.75 percentage points for a second-straight time on Thursday, doubling existing rates to take them to their highest in over a decade. | 
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