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STORY: The boom times seem to be over for Europe’s oil giants, for now at least.

On Thursday (July 27), Shell said second quarter profits were down by 56%, to about $5 billion.

That was worse than analysts expected.

It’s taken a hit as oil and gas prices cooled off.

The firm also saw slimmer margins on refining, and a weaker performance on trading.

Oil prices had soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But they’ve since fallen back as fears of a global economic downturn eased concern that supplies could run short.

Benchmark Brent crude prices averaged $80 per barrel over the period, down from $110 a year earlier.

Shell has now slowed the pace of its stock buyback program in response.

Its shares were down 2% in early trade.

There was a similar story over at France’s TotalEnergies.

Its quarterly profits were down 49%.

However, that still left it doing better than before the Ukraine conflict began.

Shares in the firm were up half a percent by late morning.

A day earlier, Norway’s Equinor also reported profits down by more than a half.