Shell smashed all-time British company profit records today, posting 2007 earnings of $27.5billion (£13.9billion), and immediately ran into a storm with union leaders, who are demanding the Government hits the oil giant with a windfall tax.
Shell's profit surge - it is now making a staggering $75million (£38million) a day - on the back of a booming oil price that touched $100 a barrel this winter, was labelled as "obscene" by Tony Woodley of Unite, the UK's largest trade union, as Britons struggle with soaring energy costs.
"Shell shareholders are doing very nicely while the rest of us are paying the price and struggling," said Woodley.
Shell's profits come as prices at the petrol pump rocket
"There are no problems with profits, but consumers should question the excessive mega-profits of the oil companies in light of UK companies and hauliers saying they are being pressed on high fuel and energy costs, pensioners struggling to pay energy bills and motorists struggling to fill their petrol tanks."
Shell angrily rejected the claims, arguing that a windfall tax in Britain would be illogical because the vast amount of its business is done around the world.
Shell's Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer called the profits "satisfactory" as production levels fell for the fifth consecutive year.
Responding to Mr Woodley's attack Mr van der Veer said that in the UK taxes accounted for more than half the cost of petrol at the pumps. "We have no influence over that," he said.
The company also claimed it is as good as matching its annual profits with huge investments - between $24 billion and $25 billion of capital expenditure this year - to find new energy sources.
"We are investing a lot of money to have the energy production to satisfy the energy demand of the world," said finance director Peter Voser.
Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer at a press conference today
"We are investing for the future of society so that people can live the life they want. That is our job."
Despite the surge in full-year profits, up 9 per cent from 2006, there was disappointment with the figures in the City.
Analysts had been pencilling in underlying "clean" profits for the fourth quarter of more than $5.8billion, but the figure came in at $5.7 billion.
Upstream production, which accounts for more than half of profits, averaged out at 3.315 million barrels of oil or their gas equivalent a day, just squeezing in to the forecast of between 3.3 million and 3.5 million.
That itself had been a major downgrade from the 3.8 million Shell had previously predicted. The company today said it expected production levels to fall again in 2008.
The biggest issue for Shell is the shutout from wells it has been co-producing in Nigeria - potentially 800,000 barrels a day - where local militia continue to demand that the world's major companies quit the Niger Delta.
Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said: "These are satisfactory results. We have made good progress in 2007, launched new projects upstream and downstream, and achieved exploration success."
The fourth-quarter dividend is up 11 per cent at 36 US cents, and the company said it would be increasing this year's first-quarter payout by a similar amount to 40 cents.
