Royal Dutch Shell Plc  .com Rotating Header Image

The Guardian: Shell’s £14bn profits branded ‘obscene’ by Unite

Fiona Walsh, business editor guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 31 2008

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is facing renewed accusations of profiteering after reporting record profits of $27.6bn (£13.9bn) – the highest-ever figure reported by a British company.

The huge profits – equivalent to more than £1.5m an hour and a 9% increase on last year – will cause anger amongst Britain’s motorists who are paying over £1 a litre for petrol after the huge increase in oil prices in recent months.

The Shell figures were immediately branded “obscene” by Unite, Britain’s biggest union, which called on the government to levy a windfall tax on the oil industry.

Joint general secretary Tony Woodley said the union had no problem with profits but that consumers should question the “excessive, mega-profits” of the oil companies.

“Shell shareholders are doing very nicely whilst the rest of us, the stakeholders, are paying the price and struggling,” he said.

“Record profits of over thirteen and a half billion pounds at Shell and cumulative oil industry profits in excess of fifty billion in the last three years are, quite frankly, obscene. It is time the government acted.”

Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer described the results as “satisfactory” and said the group had made good progress in 2007.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/31/royaldutchshell.oil

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Comment Rules

  • Please show respect to the opinions of others no matter how seemingly far-fetched.
  • Abusive, foul language, and/or divisive comments may be deleted without notice.
  • Each blog member is allowed limited comments, as displayed above the comment box.
  • Comments must be limited to the number of words displayed above the comment box.
  • Please limit one comment after any comment posted per post.