Former Dutch company Shell has made a profit of $18 billion over the past three months, while consumers keep paying blood prices for oil and gas.
Shell, like most oil and gas companies, is still raking it in despite the global energy crisis. We regular folks just have to pay up. 💸
No crisis big enough
“But what about the Russia-Ukraine situation”, we hear you ask, “shouldn’t that have made Shell lose a bunch of money this year?”
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No. Well, sort of. The company had to say goodbye to around $4 billion last quarter after leaving Russia (like the good guys they are), but, as NOS reports, they still managed to make a profit of $7.1 billion — somehow.
In general, Shell has made huge cash off the fact that we’re paying insane amounts for oil and gas over here.
Yep, we’re not at all bitter about that. 🙄
The big guys find a way
The oil company has also been known to purchase its own shares, boosting its share prices. In fact, Shell has already bought $8.5 billion in its own shares so far this year.
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In the UK (where Shell is currently based, after ditching their home country), the government has imposed a “solidarity tax”, moving cash from the big oil and gas companies to the people on the ground struggling to make ends meet due to the high prices.
“Wow, that sounds great,” you say. “Let’s go for it here in the Netherlands too!”.
But alas, Minister of Climate and Energy Policy Rob Jetten, and State Secretary for Tax Affairs and Tax Administration Marnix van Rij, say it’s all just too complicated. 🤷♀️
We won’t get a similar tax here anytime soon, so we’ll just have to watch in envy over Brexit-land and admire their cool Robin Hood-ish approach. Ugh.
Are you too ready to see the fossil fuel industry struggle as much as we are with paying the bills? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
Here in Brexit Britain the government has belatedly decided to pay us a completely inadequate amount (just under €500, in instalments and nobody knows how the poorest customers who pay cash via their meters will be paid.) This money will not be a tax on Shell or Centrica (the owners of the formerly publicly owned British Gas. Unfortunately annual bills for gas and electricity are expected to rise to about €4000 from the autumn. Neither the buffoon in 10 Downing Street who is currently playing soldiers and having farewell parties at taxpayers’ expense nor his likely successor have any plan for dealing with the worldwide hike in energy prices. Leaving the EU has just given our government a licence to behave completely irresponsibly. They recoil in horror from the mere idea of a windfall tax on the authorities, even though their idol, Mrs Thatcher, was quite happy to levy them on companies making excessive profits. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/26/the-history-of-windfall-taxes-who-used-them-and-why