All three European majors posted "exceptional" trading results: BP more than doubled profits year-over-year, TotalEnergies raised its interim dividend 6%, and Shell beat consensus estimates.

Europe's majors outperformed U.S. rivals Chevron and ExxonMobil on trading, with the American firms more directly exposed to production losses in the Middle East.

BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies earned between $3.3 billion and $4.75 billion more in Q1 2025 trading than Q4 2025, driven by extreme market volatility from the Iran war.

The European oil majors with the biggest trading desks raised their trading profits by up to $4.75 billion in the first quarter from the end of last year, amid extreme market volatility driven by the war in Iran.

The biggest European majors, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies, likely earned between $3.3 billion and $4.75 billion more in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, the Financial Times reports, citing estimates from analysts.

Big Oil companies do not disclose their trading profits separately from the overall results, but usually comment on the performance of their trading divisions.

This past quarter, the oil and gas price spike and the heightened volatility drove strong earnings across all majors who have extensive trading desks and divisions. In this segment, Europe's biggest firms outperformed the U.S. supermajors.

Amid the worst disruption in the history of the oil markets, the European majors saw what they described as "exceptional" trading profits, which offset lost production from the Middle East.

For the U.S. majors Chevron and ExxonMobil, their earnings were more closely tied to the loss of Middle Eastern production. Still, the two U.S. firms beat analyst expectations as the oil price surge more than offset the production decline.

Shell last week reported consensus-beating earnings for the first quarter as the war in Iran drove an oil price surge and boosted trading profits at the UK-based supermajor. The company attributed the earnings bump to higher realized liquids prices and significantly higher trading amid unprecedented market volatility.

BP more than doubled its profit for the first quarter from a year earlier as oil prices jumped and oil trading boomed amid the war in the Middle East.

TotalEnergies, for its part, raised its interim dividend by 6% as first-quarter earnings jumped by 30% from a year earlier, pushed up by the spike in oil prices and very strong oil trading results in the wake of the Iran war.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

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