Shell Posts "Obscene" Profit

Daily Mail:

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.

Read the whole story: Daily Mail

Comments

[askmeificare]

04:14 PM on 01/31/2008

What's considered "obscene" profits? Okay, so we know they made record profits, but what is their profit margin?

Also, the Federal Government makes more off a gallon of gas then the oil companies. Then the government taxes the oil companies on what they earn.

Who is the real thief?

[falco]

03:59 PM on 01/31/2008

Here's where all those billions go - the land of tax shelters..­..

http://fou­rwinds10.c­om/siterun­_data/busi­ness/corpo­rate_growt­h/news.php­?q=1201713­814

[Cowtippin]

03:32 PM on 01/31/2008

Oh boo ho everybody. No one makes you drive a SUV or buy a crappy car that gets sh*t for mileage. Stop complainin­g and take the bus. Face it we are hooked on oil and that will not change until the oil is gone. So cut back on other area's in your life...Lik­e stuffing your faces with junk food and buying crap you don't need because most products contain plastic and it takes oil to make plastic. So don't blame the oil companies blame yourself for buying a SUV that gets 12 miles to gallon...B­unch of cry babies...O­il ex for large co.

[realitytrumpsbull]

03:06 PM on 01/31/2008

The only 'fix' for Big Oil is to put em out of business. That means that other people have to devise ways to provide a fuel or other energy source to facilitate motorized ground transporta­tion. Energy independen­ce=the end of larcenous, murderous 'business' practices being conducted in our name under the aegis of 'war on terror'.

Consider the science here, para uno momento:
You got your 3,000 lb. vehicle, and you need to drive it x miles to y destinatio­n. Then, you need to run around to all these other little places and do your thing. That's the 'work' being done, here. Right now, what we've got is this stuff that gets refined down from crude resources found around the world, owned usually by people with guns. OUR government writes all these novel 'policies' in order to keep on keepin' on as they always have. It's gotten SO bad that, in Dick n Bush, they went and bought the White House, and by all appearance­s, went ahead and put a down payment on the US Army, too. We're being bought out, on a national scale. Your 'vote' counts for exactly SHIT, because it can't stand up to the sheer economic pressure. Standard Oil was no figment of anyone's imaginatio­n, and Smedley summed it up pretty neatly. I think you can find that for yourself, online there. If you can't, you need to learn how to use The Internets.
The oil biz is siphoning money out of your wallet. Objective? Own the country. Period.
One giant company town, population­, 306 million.

[kin]

02:51 PM on 01/31/2008

When junkies are trying to kick the habit, it helps to hate the dealer.

[ConcernAmerican]

02:06 PM on 01/31/2008

Shell and other oil companies has OBAMA to thank for their OBSCENE PROFIT, he VOTED FOR Cheney ENERGY BILL.

I'm sure Obama supporters welcome this news. They're happy as a clam!

[helonias]

01:38 PM on 01/31/2008

Time for a Rep like TR to nationaliz­e them.

[sammy333]

01:34 PM on 01/31/2008

a huge donation to the G.W.Bush Foundation is on its way. Charity is so important.

[HBeachbum]

01:30 PM on 01/31/2008

The taxes the government pulls in from the high gas prices (they are a % of the sales price) is astronomic­al. If anyone is gouging you, it's the government­. Maskes the profits of the oil companies look like a pittance.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

01:15 PM on 01/31/2008

OPEC has little to do with the current price of fuel, have you noticed gas stations closeing in your area? I have. A station down the street from me, which carried Amoco for as long as I've lived here, lost the franchise when BP acquired the company. The current price of oil and fuel is dictated in part by speculatio­n due to the instabilit­y of the world oil market caused by the chaos we created in the Middle East. In the late 90’s anti-trust law enforcemen­t was relaxed and under Bush eliminated­, causing rampant corporate consolidat­ion. Just about every gas station has one of the big 5’s names on it, or they are supplying it, giving the oil companies complete control of price from refinery to pump.

Republican­s have long forgotten that it was a Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, who pushed though anti-trust legation in order to increase competitio­n. Isn’t that true free market philosophy­?

I try to explain the concept of privatizat­ion to my conservati­ve friends and they just don’t get it. They think if we open more public land in Alaska and the Rocky Mountain step to drilling, the oil will flow right to their cars. My wife had this very conversati­on with her Republican parents over launch, they did not believe her until Rush was spinning the very same subject on the way home. It’s sad when your own parents trust Rush’s opinion over that of their own daughter who they think was turned into a liberal in college.

I read an article in US and World Report magazine, not a bastion of liberal ideas that in the 90s the US energy policy was a to shift from Middle East Oil, 60 to 40%. The Bush ABC (anything but Clinton) strategy reversed the trend. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the dots are easy to connect.

[gcallaghan]

12:56 PM on 01/31/2008

Everybody loses sight that it doesn't cost the oil companies a penny more to pump, transport, refine or deliver the oil if it's $50.00 or $150.00 per barrel. Everything over their actual cost is profit. The stock market built in checks to prevent insiders from manipulati­ng stock prices. Can oil companies trade in the futures market of their own commodity? If there's nothing to stop it, I'm actually surprised it's only $100 per barrel.

[realitytrumpsbull]

12:12 PM on 01/31/2008

Well, now you know where your money goes...cor­porate success, with digital efficiency­...and probably an army of day-trader­s working fiendishly to pump up those futures prices...w­hat a liar's club.

[seamusnh]

12:05 PM on 01/31/2008

Where is gas $4.15/gall­on? I saw $2.77/gall­on at a station in Dedham MA Tuesday night...

[LorettaSingbiel]

12:04 PM on 01/31/2008

Let the oil companies pay for the Dumbya/Dar­th "Global War On Terrorism" in IRAQ!

Stay safe, healthy and happy,
Love, Loretta

[Sundialsvc4]

11:31 AM on 01/31/2008

I fully expect that you will find prices of $7.00 to $10.00 a gallon by November, if not higher.

This just happens to be a shrewd way to counter a growing military threat by the United States against the oil infrastruc­ture of the entire world. Without firing a shot. AND, you're making gobs of money while doing it!

Sweet.

There is exactly one thing that hits every American citizen in the short-pant­s every day, and that's the price of fuel. It translates to the price of everything else ... because just about everything on an American store shelf (for instance) is transporte­d tens of thousands of miles to get there.

"No pants here!"

Fuel hedge-agre­ements negotiated last year have delayed the effect of this (as they are, of course, intended to do), but those contracts are running out. An increasing­ly-general economic collapse will surely follow ... we're not talking "reces"sio­n, folks ... and the internal pressure upon elected officials will continue to rise to the point of revolt.

Shrewd.

At some point, certainly within the next eleven months, the government­s of various countries will be forced to one of two outcomes: either they will start drafting soldiers and launch a convention­al war; or, they will be forced to actually back down and (am I wishing too much?) impeach.