The consequences of the Ukraine war brought Shell more than twice as much profit as in the previous year. The business figures of energy companies are not only a thorn in the side of environmental associations. US President Biden even accuses them of taking advantage of the situation.
The British energy group Shell more than doubled its profits last year compared to the previous year. The company had a net profit of 42.3 billion dollars – the equivalent of 38.4 billion euros. Shell, like other industry giants such as ExxonMobil and Chevron from the USA, benefited massively from the high energy prices in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine. The criticism of it continues.
As a Shell spokesman said, the 2022 annual profit is the highest profit the group has ever recorded. In the fourth quarter, profit rose again by 54 percent year-on-year, mainly due to the high demand and corresponding prices for liquefied natural gas.
The company announced a $4 billion share buyback program and a 15 percent increase in its fourth-quarter dividend. In total, Shell is paying out around $26 billion to its shareholders for 2022.
The record profits fuel criticism of the energy companies. Environmental organizations are demanding that they be made more responsible for climate protection. Greenpeace UK called for Shell and others to be made to pay into a climate fund. In May, the British government introduced a special levy on extraordinary energy gains. The EU also decided on a “limited solidarity levy”.
In the US, President Joe Biden criticized the huge profits made by Chevron and ExxonMobil. The president repeatedly accused the companies of deliberately not increasing production in order to keep prices high. The only thing “stopping Big Oil from ramping up production is their decision to pay shareholders billions instead of reinvesting profits,” Biden tweeted in response to the release of ExxonMobil’s full-year results.
Thanks to the high oil prices, the American energy giant Exxon Mobil made a record profit of 59 billion dollars last year – the equivalent of 54.5 billion euros – and thus earned 6.7 million dollars, i.e. 6.2 million euros, per hour. CFO Kathryn Mikells doesn’t think much of an excess profit tax. This levy is the result of “bad policies,” she said.
