LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell said Thursday that net profit jumped 43 percent in the third quarter, energized like its competitors by rising oil and gas prices. Profit after tax leapt to $5.84 billion in the three months to September from $4.09 billion in the same period of 2017, the Anglo-Dutch energy giant said in a statement. “Earnings primarily benefited from increased realized oil, gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices,” it added. The news came two days after British rival BP revealed that its third-quarter net profit had doubled on sharply higher oil prices. Brent crude prices soared in September to a four-year peak above $82 a barrel partly on supply fears particularly in Iran, which faces new US sanctions. That contrasted with about $50 a barrel in the summer of last year. Supply also remains under pressure after the OPEC oil group joined forces with 10 non-members including Russia to curb their collective output at the end of 2016. The move was aimed largely at countering surging shale energy production in the United States, a key factor which had helped push Brent oil under $30 earlier that year. The so-called OPEC+ group agreed a milestone deal to trim production from January 2017 by 1.8 million barrels a day to clear a global oil glut.