Royal Dutch Shell's third-quarter profits ballooned by 71 per cent to $10.9bn (£6.7bn), the company said yesterday, reigniting outrage that energy companies are cashing in while inflated oil prices punish consumers.
Windfall Tax
Shell’s $10.6bn profits fuel windfall tax calls
Windfall tax is ‘still an option’
Downing Street says it has not ruled out a "windfall tax" on energy companies to pay for handouts to families struggling to meet bills.
It’s a windfall. Now share it
For Shell, they amounted to £13.9bn in 2007-08 and £4bn in the second quarter of this year, a 4.6% improvement on 2007.
The windfall trap
With oil at $140 a barrel, Shell made £4 billion between April and June this year alone, and BP nearly as much, and it is fashionable in some quarters to argue that they did so more by luck than judgment.
Windfall tax lets Alaska rake in billions from Big Oil
Even the market-friendly United Kingdom, home to oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell, recently has sought to capture a bigger share of revenue from companies operating in the North Sea.
Don’t make the consumer pay for these inflated fuel prices
Suddenly the air is thick with calls for windfall taxes on energy companies, particularly as oil giants BP and Shell are reporting massive profits.
Fuel-bills hike lights Scotland’s touchpaper
It is the plight of people such as McDonald that has prompted the government to consider imposing a windfall tax on energy companies, which are continuing to reap massive profits while the cost of their products soar. Despite warnings from business groups, including the Confederation of British Industry, that such taxes could add to instability in the economy and reduce the budgets available for investment in renewables, Gordon Brown may have no choice. Beleaguered by a series of election defeats and the subject of plotting by disaffected members of his own cabinet, there appears little doubt the prime minister will yield to public outrage.
Petrol strike to leave motorists without fuel
Strike action by tanker drivers could close hundreds of petrol forecourts within days.
‘No plans’ for oil windfall tax
...he admitted it was a "disappointment" that Shell had announced it would pull out of a giant wind farm scheme in the Thames Estuary
Grease our palms with oil tax
The Observer: Grease our palms with oil tax
If people are so outraged by the huge profits collected by the oil companies, may I suggest a neat solution that also has the attraction of redistributing wealth where it is most needed. Why doesn’t the government penalise our oil majors, BP and Shell, via a windfall tax and use the money to repay taxpayers who have forked out £25bn to rescue Northern Rock? That way the much reviled oil companies are cut down to size and the government wins popular support – sorely needed after its dismal local election results.