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Oil giant Shell booked record profit of almost €38.5 billion last year, boosted by high oil and gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The total – $40 billion – is almost double 2021’s earnings and the highest in the company’s 115 year history.
Oil firms have been attacked for their record profits last year given the impact of soaring energy prices on inflation and household spending.
In total, the big oil firms earned almost €260 billion, with only BP booking a loss because of its investments in Russia. Earlier this week, US president Joe Biden described Exxon’s record $56 billion profits as ‘outrageous’.
Shell, now formally a British company only, said earlier it expects to pay an additional €2 billion in tax following measures brought in by Britain and the EU to cream off some of the additional earnings.
Shell’s new chief executive Wael Sawan said the firm’s results ‘demonstrate the strength of Shell’s differentiated portfolio, as well as our capacity to deliver vital energy to our customers in a volatile world.’
Anger
Dutch MPs said in a reaction that the government should cream off more of Shell’s profits to pay for insulating homes and installing solar panels.
‘It is time to fairly tax these exorbitant excess profits and that is something we can organise today,’ GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver said during a debate on the government’s climate plans.
The four coalition parties also expressed their unease at the record earnings, but said there is little that the Netherlands can do, now the company has moved its HQ to London.
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