Shell reported a £5.1 billion profit in the first quarter, a sharp jump from £4.1 billion a year earlier and an early signal of who's financially benefiting from the escalation with Iran. Oil majors including Equinor and BP also posted large profits, and Shell said output fell 4% quarter-on-quarter even as it raised its dividend by 5% and announced a £2.2 billion share buyback. At the same time, chief executives from RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, L3Harris Missile Solutions and Honeywell Aerospace held a White House meeting that sources say produced pledges to boost weapons production, backing a US administration push to lift defence spending toward $1.5 trillion by 2027.

Energy companies are among the clearest financial beneficiaries of the escalation. Shell reported a £5.1 billion profit for the first three months of the year, up from £4.1 billion a year earlier and from £2.4 billion in the final three months of 2025. The company announced a 5% dividend increase and a £2.2 billion share buyback programme, even as it said oil and gas output fell 4% quarter-on-quarter due to the conflict and related disruption.

Equinor declared profits just under £7 billion for the same period, and BP reported profits of almost £2.4 billion. Companies and analysts put the gains down to elevated wholesale oil and gas prices since the start of the conflict and to supply interruptions across the Middle East. Some large US oil firms posted mixed results. ExxonMobil and Chevron recorded lower earnings than in the same quarter last year, which has been attributed to supply disruption, but both beat analysts' forecasts and told investors they expect profits to grow later in the year while prices remain higher than before the war.

Shell said its reporting pointed to damage at a Qatari gas plant that could take about a year to repair. That account, cited by the company in its results, was also linked by campaigners to the surge in energy profits. Environmental groups staged public protests targeting executive gains at Shell as consumers faced higher pump prices and rising household energy bills.

Defence firms see orders rise and prices follow

Defence contractors have been another clear beneficiary. Chief executives from RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, L3Harris Missile Solutions and Honeywell Aerospace attended a White House meeting that, according to sources, resulted in commitments to "quadruple production" of advanced weaponry to meet wartime demand. The US was already the world's largest military spender at nearly $1 trillion in 2025, and the administration has signalled an objective to raise that level toward $1.5 trillion by 2027.

Mastheads

That fiscal backdrop supports larger order books for the major defence firms.

US Central Command described Operation Epic Fury as drawing on more than 20 distinct weapons systems across air, sea, land and missile-defence forces. Sources list systems used or deployed in the campaign including Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Precision Strike Missile fired from M-142 HIMARS, Patriot and THAAD air-defence batteries, and a mix of remotely piloted and single-use attack drones. US Central Command also referenced MQ-9 Reaper systems and lower-cost one-way attack drones such as the LUCAS system, which has been noted at roughly $35,000 per unit.

Market moves tracked the operational and fiscal cues. Shares in major US defence firms rose in the immediate period cited by sources, with Northrop Grumman reported up about 5%, RTX up about 4.5% and Lockheed Martin up about 3%. Executives have signalled plans to increase production capacity and staffing to meet higher procurement volumes.

Where the reporting is thin, and what that means

Not every element of the story is equally well corroborated in the reporting set. Claims that banks and other financial institutions are among the companies "making billions" appeared in one outlet, the BBC, and lack the named bank figures or corroboration in the other accounts available to this briefing. Several operational details also rest on single accounts. For example, the scale and timing of the Qatari plant repair and specific changes in individual executives' shareholdings were reported by one source linked to the company statements.

That uneven sourcing doesn't erase the clear signals in the corporate filings and in official activity. Shell's announced £2.2 billion buyback and dividend increase are concrete company measures already scheduled to proceed on the timescale the company set out. Meanwhile, the White House-level engagement with defence executives and the administration's target for higher overall spending constitute policy-level drivers for future orders and revenues for defence contractors.

Across both sectors, companies are translating higher revenue into returns for shareholders and plans for expanded production. In energy, that means buybacks and dividends while firms weigh output losses from damaged infrastructure. In defence, it means greater production commitments for missiles, drones and missile-defence systems to supply campaigns that use a broad mix of systems.

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The clearest forward signal is fiscal. The US administration's stated objective to raise defence spending toward $1.5 trillion by 2027 is the largest scheduled policy anchor likely to shape orders and corporate revenues in the years ahead.

This article was created with AI assistance.