Royal Dutch Shell investors reaped the rewards of its “transformation” yesterday when it said that it would resume paying its entire $16 billion annual dividend in cash and would press ahead with at least $25 billion of share buybacks by 2020.

Europe’s biggest listed energy company has been saving cash over the past two and a half years by paying about a quarter of its dividend in the form of new shares, part of a strategy to help it to cope with the longest sustained downturn in oil prices for a generation.

The “scrip” dividend has helped to reduce the strain on Shell’s balance sheet after the crash in oil prices since 2014 and as the company nursed heavy debts after a £35 billion takeover… FULL ARTICLE