Environmental groups renewed calls for a windfall tax to support households after Shell reported a sharp rise in second-quarter earnings to $9.84bn (£7.4bn). The FTSE 100 company said net profit more than doubled in the three months ended in June as Europe’s biggest oil and gas company benefited from higher oil and gas prices driven by war in the Middle East.
Shell’s net profit reached $9.84bn (£7.4bn) in the second quarter, more than double the figure for the same period last year. The increase came as wholesale energy prices soared because of the conflict in the Middle East, improving profit margins and lifting activity on Shell’s trading desks.
The global oil price has climbed from about $61 a barrel in January to highs of $126 at the end of April, owing to disruptions to flows of oil and gas through the strait of Hormuz. Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded at $93.18 a barrel on Thursday.
Shell chief executive Wael Sawan said there had been
“severe disruption in global energy markets”due to the war. The company also reported a 30% drop in production from its integrated gas division compared with the same quarter last year.
The fall in production follows a strike that damaged its assets at the in Qatar in March. Repairs to the plant are expected to take about a year.
Shell’s surging profits reignited criticism from environmental campaigners, who said taxes should be used to fund support for households hardest hit by rising energy costs.
Ruby Schulkind, a political campaigner at Greenpeace, said the environmental group was
“running out of words to describe the obscenity”of huge profits at Shell.
“Europe is engulfed by apocalyptic wildfires, communities across Asia are reeling from devastating floods, and the UK battles through drought and yet more dangerous heat,”
she said.
“These aren’t anomalies, they’re the defining story of the fossil fuel age: Shell takes the profits, and the rest of us pick up the catastrophic bill.”
She called on the government to implement a windfall tax on big oil companies and to use the revenue
“to help households with the cost of living, strengthen our resilience against extreme weather, and supercharge the transition to clean, affordable energy”.
