David Bunch, Shell’s UK country chair, noted that the investments will help “propel the UK closer to net zero and help to ensure security of supply”.However, he added the FTSE 100 firm needs a “stable tax and investment climate” and businesses and government need to “pull in the same direction”.
This appears to be a reference to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision last month to impose a £5billion windfall tax on energy companies that have seen sky-high profits while consumers continue to fork out extra cash to pay their bills.
As part of his “significant set of interventions”, the Chancellor said he would introduce a “temporary, targeted energy profits levy”.
Mr Sunak said: “The oil and gas sector is making extraordinary profits, not as the result of recent changes to risk-taking or innovation or efficiency, but as the result of surging global commodity prices driven in part by Russia’s war.”
The Chancellor said the profits levy would be 25 percent, with a 90 percent tax relief for firms that invest in oil and gas extraction in Britain.
Currently, Shell is primarily involved in fossil fuel extraction, however, it is also responsible for supplying energy to about 1.4 million UK households through its UK retail business Shell Energy Retail.
The company has also launched Shell Recharge, an electric car charging service that so has had 100,000 drivers sign up to access over 10,000 public EV charging points across the UK.
According to Shell’s website: “We plan to grow our public EV charging network to 100,000 by 2030.
“This means that 90 percent of all UK drivers will be within a 10-minute drive of a Shell rapid charger.”
Shell’s retail arm has seen major growth in the past year, as it picked up 500,000 customers left behind by energy suppliers that went bust due to volatile gas prices.
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