Shell has further fuelled demands for a windfall tax on the sector as it revealed record first-quarter profits thanks to soaring oil and gas prices, just days after bumper earnings from rival BP. The oil giant posted better-than-expected underlying earnings for the first three months of 2022, at 9.1 billion US dollars (£7.2 billion) – nearly three times the 3.2 billion dollars (£2.5 billion) reported a year earlier.
On Tuesday, fellow FTSE 100 firm BP unveiled its highest quarterly underlying profits for more than a decade, at 6.2 billion US dollars (£5 billion). It comes as calls mount from Labour and the Liberal Democrats for a windfall tax on oil and gas firms to help ease the cost-of-living crisis.
The sector is reaping the benefits of rocketing oil and gas prices, which have been pushed to record levels by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and surging demand as economies emerge from the pandemic. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has so far resisted pressure to make the firms pay more tax, instead looking to companies making big profits to invest the cash back into the UK.
