Bye-bye buybacks? Big Oil's record-breaking shareholder payouts are under threat

A protracted slump in crude prices has ramped up the pressure on Big Oil's commitment to allocate cash to shareholders.

Western energy supermajors have long sought to return cash to investors through buyback programs and dividends to keep their shareholders happy. Energy executives have also expressed confidence that they can continue to reward investors following a relatively robust set of first-quarter earnings.

Some analysts, however, are less convinced about Big Oil's pledge to return ever-higher shareholder returns, citing already stretched balance sheets and a sharp drop in crude prices.

Oil prices have fallen more than 12% year-to-date amid persistent demand concerns and U.S. President Donald Trump's back-and-forth trade policy.

Espen Erlingsen, head of upstream research at consultancy Rystad Energy, said recent market volatility has left the energy majors with "few economically attractive options" that allow for reinvestment while maintaining a competitive capital returns framework.

"As companies like Shell and ExxonMobil continue to push ahead with large-scale buyback programs despite shrinking cash inflows, the durability of these strategies is in question. For now, the majors are holding the line. But if oil prices remain depressed, adjustments may be inevitable," Erlingsen said in a research note published Thursday.

Share buybacks, which are typically more flexible than dividends, are "likely to be the first lever pulled," he added. In that vein, weaker crude prices mean energy majors will have less cash to return to shareholders.

Investor concern over the sustainability of Big Oil's shareholder returns comes after a year of record-breaking payouts.

Analysts at Rystad said total shareholder rewards from the likes of Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Eni, Exxon Mobil and Chevron climbed to a whopping $119 billion in 2024, beating the previous record set in 2023.

The payout ratio, which refers to shareholder payouts as a share of corporate cash flow from operations (CFFO), meanwhile jumped up to 56% last year, Rystad said. That was well above the 30% to 40% range that was typical for the industry from 2012 through to 2022, the analysts added.

If shareholder payouts were to remain at 2024 levels throughout 2025, Rystad said this would imply companies distribute more than 80% of their cash flow to investors. The estimate was based on Big Oil's first-quarter CFFO as a proxy for full-year performance.

For European majors, analysts at Bank of America said at the start of the year in a note entitled "bye-bye buybacks?" that it anticipated cuts in such returns, from companies whose balance sheets were already stretched.

The Wall Street bank cited BP, Repsol and Eni at the time. It added that only Shell, TotalEnergies and Equinor were among the regional players likely to keep their respective 2025 buyback run-rates intact.

Spokespersons for Repsol and Eni were not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

So far, BP is the only European energy major to have trimmed its buyback run-rate. The beleaguered British oil company last month posted a sharp fall in first-quarter profit and reduced its share buyback to $750 million, down from $1.75 billion in the prior quarter.

BP, which has been the subject of intense takeover speculation, also reported significantly lower cash flow and rising net debt for the first quarter.

Lydia Rainforth, head of European energy, equity research at Barclays, said BP's future appears to be "really bright" — on the condition that the company can get through the next six months.

"If I think about when is that point of maximum weakness for BP, it is over the next six months, ultimately. Debt continues to go up a little bit, production continues to fall until mid-2026," Rainforth told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick on Thursday.

"As I get towards the end of the year, hopefully we'll see that sum of divestments taking down debt. Things like … selling their lubricants business, that could raise between $12 billion to $15 billion. It brings down debt, you start to see the benefit of cost savings coming through, and then production growth starts kicking in next year," she added.