DAILY EXPRESS (UK): Drivers fume at Shell’s £25m profit every day: “Shell's new chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, is set to make millions from a new pay package deal.” (ShellNews.net) Posted 2 Feb 05
Published 31 Jan 05
By Sarah Westcott
OIL giant Shell is set to announce the biggest-ever profit in UK corporate history, working out at more than £l million an hour.
The company is this week expected to report income after tax for 2004 of £9.2 billion, a bumper rise of 55 per cent on a year earlier.
The astonishing profits, which saw Shell raking in more than £25 million every day, are bound to leave hard-pressed drivers fuming.
Consumers hare been feeling the beat of record crude oil prices, fuelled by the continued unrest in Iraq and are facing pump prices of more than 80p a litre.
Bonanza
The profits bonanza is expected to be mirrored by arch-rival BP, although neither UK company will match the £13billion set to be unveiled by US-based Esso owner ExxonMobil today.
Such a figure would represent the largest annual profit made by a public company.
Shell has seen sky-high crude oil prices lifting its performance during an otherwise troubled year.
In October the Anglo-Dutch energy giant announced plans to merge its UK and Dutch parent companies after nearly 100 years of separate operations.
Analysts expect it to unveil a massive 180 per cent jump hi fourth quarter profits to £2.5bil-lion. Shell's profits are believed to be higher than BP's although BP's chairman Lord Browne last week controversially described the company's cash flow as "staggering".
The forecasts came as oil cartel Opec wanted that oil prices, still hovering near 50 US dollars a barrel, would remain high throughout the spring. It agreed to keep its production ceiling at 27 million barrels a day.
The decision, reached at a meeting of the 11-nation group in Vienna, offers little solace for consumers worried about high fuel prices.
The RAC has found that interest rate rises and fuel prices have pushed the cost of motoring to the highest level since autumn 2003, although it points out that much of the UK retail price is in tax.
The average cost of running a family car has now accelerated to £5,368 a year.
And rocketing petrol bills account for more than £1,000 of the total - for the first time.
The BAG said that the cost of fuel for motorists would have been even higher but for the recent supermarket petrol price war, which saw forecourts across the country undercutting rivals.
Last night Tesco insisted it would continue to offer its customers the "cheapest priced petrol within a three-mile radius" regardless of what was happening further up the fuel supply chain.
A petrol pump war flared earlier this month as major supermarkets cut prices by more than four per cent to the cheapest in four months, knocking as much of £3 off a full tank in a family car.
Targets
It came as a relief for motorists after average litre prices rose to 85p in October - the levels seen around the time of the pump protests in 2000.
Shell's new chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, is set to make millions from a new pay package deal. Dutchman Van der Veer received £800,000 in total in 2003 before he was appointed to the top job. It is believed his basic salary is unlikely to change but he will benefit from new performance targets potentially worth millions of pounds.
Shell has traditionally paid less to its executives than its rivals. In 2002 then chairman Sir Philip Watts received £1.8million. His counterpart at BI^ Lord Browne, earned more than £3million in the same year, while the boss of the American company ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond, received £3.6million last year.