Purchases of securities

On July 29, 2021, the Company announced the start of a share buyback programme of $2 billion, which was completed in November 2021. Subsequently, on December 1, 2021, the Company announced the first $1.5 billion tranche of a buyback programme to return $7 billion of proceeds from the divestment of its Permian assets. This tranche was completed in January 2022. In February 2022, share buybacks of $8.5 billion for the first half of 2022 were announced. These included the remaining $5.5 billion of the Permian divestment proceeds that had been allocated for share buybacks.

At December 31, 2021, 126 million B shares with a nominal value of €8.8 million ($10 million) (1.62% of the Company’s total issued share capital at December 31, 2020) were purchased and cancelled during 2021 for a total cost of $2.7 billion including expenses, at an average price of $21.60 per share.

This was in accordance with the authorities granted by shareholders at the 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Company to repurchase up to a maximum of 10% of its issued ordinary shares, excluding treasury shares (780 million ordinary shares). As at December 31, 2021, 653 million ordinary shares could still be repurchased under the current AGM authority. The purpose of the share repurchases in 2021 was to reduce the issued share capital of the Company.

A new resolution will be proposed at the 2022 AGM to renew the authority for the Company to purchase its own share capital, up to specified limits, for a further year. This proposal will be described in more detail in the 2022 Notice of Annual General Meeting.

Shares are also purchased by the employee share ownership trusts and trust-like entities (see the “Other regulatory and statutory information”) to meet delivery commitments under employee share plans. All share purchases are made in open-market transactions.

The table below provides information on purchases of shares in 2021 by the Company and affiliated purchasers. Purchases in euros and sterling are converted into dollars using the exchange rate on each transaction date.