LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell has announced the commencement of trading in the next tranche of its share buyback programme previously announced on July 26, 2018.

In the next tranche, the company has entered into an irrevocable, non-discretionary arrangement with a broker to enable the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares for a period up to and including October 28, 2019.

The aggregate maximum consideration for the purchase of A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares under the next tranche is $2.75 billion. The company’s intention is to buy back at least $25 billion of its shares by the end of 2020, subject to further progress with debt reduction and oil price conditions.

The maximum number of ordinary shares which may be purchased by the company under the next tranche of its share buyback programme is 815 million, which is the maximum pursuant to the authority granted by shareholders at the company’s 2019 Annual General Meeting.

 The shares bought back under the next tranche will be the A ordinary shares traded in the EUR denomination and whichever of the A ordinary shares and/or B ordinary shares traded in the GBP denomination is economically the least expensive on a given trading day.

The purpose of the next tranche is to reduce the issued share capital of the company to offset the number of shares issued under the Scrip Dividend Programme and, in combination with the other tranches of the share buyback programme, to significantly reduce the equity issued in connection with the company’s combination with BG Group. All shares repurchased as part of the next tranche will be cancelled.