Shell CEO calls for energy taxes to help poorest

 

Speaking at an energy intelligence forum in London, he said European governments should tax corporates to help weaker parts of society cope with soaring energy costs, Daily Business reports.

 

The EU last week agreed on emergency measures to impose a levy on energy firms' profits.

 

Mr van Beurden said that European energy prices and the huge volatility in the markets threatened broader social instability.

 

"There needs to be government intervention… intervention that somehow results in protecting the poorest," he said.

 

"You cannot have a market that behaves in such a way … that is going to damage a significant part of society."

 

"One way or another there needs to be government intervention that somehow results in protecting the poorest," Van Beurden said. "That probably may then mean that governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it."

 

The company later clarified that he was referring to companies, not individuals.

 

Energy firms such as Shell have made billions from rising wholesale energy prices since Russia invaded Ukraine. Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak was pressured into introducing a windfall tax in May, but Prime Minister Liz Truss has ruled out extending it.

 

The levy will raise £7 billion in one year, which will help to pay for the £400 subsidy to household energy bills.

 

However, the UK government spokesperson said it has been clear that it "wants to see the oil and gas sector reinvest its profits to support the economy, jobs, and the UK's energy security".

 

Susannah Streeter, a market analyst at broker Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Shell's boss has flung open a door on a windfall tax which the UK government had been trying to close."

 

Georgia Whitaker, of Greenpeace UK, said: "When the boss of Shell is backing a windfall tax, it makes you wonder what it's going to take for the government to make a withdrawal."

 

BP boss Bernard Looney, who once described the business as a "cash machine", admitted in July that a windfall tax would not affect its investments in the North Sea.

 

Brent Crude oil has fallen from $120 per barrel in May to about $90.