Shell plc will pay around $2 billion in additional UK taxes for the final period of 2022, but the cut to revenue won’t overcome strong profits from natural gas trading, the London-based major said Friday.

In fact, Shell said in a trading update that it should record “significantly higher” earnings for 4Q2022 even with a higher tax load. 

In the Integrated Gas unit, which includes LNG and gas-to-liquids businesses, production for 4Q2022 was estimated at 900,000-940,000 boe/d. The reduced output was pinned on a “longer than expected outage” at the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas project in Australia following a union strike.

LNG liquefaction volumes in the final three months of 2022 were estimated at 6.6-7.0 million metric tons (mmt). The reduction in volumes,...