Oil Price Fall Turns Up the Heat on Big Oil’s Bloated Payouts

A combination of file photos shows logos of oil majors BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — A combination of file photos shows the logos of five of the largest publicly traded oil companies; BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies. REUTERS

The five biggest global oil majors are moving to cut costs, jobs and share buybacks as falling oil prices threaten to make shareholder payouts unsustainable without increasing debt, analysts said.

Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell and TotalEnergies have pledged high returns for the past decade to avert an investor exodus as fossil fuels lost their appeal.

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But maintaining those generous payouts, which have topped $100 million annually since 2022, has increasingly been funded by debt as energy prices retreated from highs caused by sanctions and supply disruptions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Oil majors, now pressed to reinvest in exploration and production, must choose between cutting some operations, letting debt rise to unsustainable levels or weaning shareholders off popular but pricey returns.

Rising global oil output, meanwhile, is expected to keep prices falling, leaving the majors facing some difficult decisions.

A bar chart showing the annual amount spent on dividends and share buybacks from 2019 to 2025 by five major energy firms: Chevron, Exxon, BP, Shell and TotalEnergies. The total amount has exceeded $100 billion annually since 2022.

Most oil majors need oil prices above $80 a barrel to sustain current levels of dividends and share buybacks, which hit record highs buoyed by bumper profits in 2022, according to data from RBC Capital Markets and BofA Global Research.

A chart showing what oil price European energy majors need in order to sustain shareholder payouts.

A line chart showing the evolution of the Brent Crude oil price from January 2022 to September 2025, during which it lost nearly 40% of its value.

To contend with lower prices, TotalEnergies said it will reduce its buybacks from the fourth quarter of this year and to the tune of $7.5 billion by the end of 2030 to reduce debt.