Shell has been accused of making ‘obscene’ record profits while motorists struggle with huge fuel bills.
The company has unveiled annual earnings of $27.6bn (£13.9bn) – equivalent to £1.5 million an hour.
Meanwhile motorists are seeing record prices at the pumps and Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite the union, is demanding a windfall tax.
‘Shell shareholders are doing very nicely whilst the rest of us, the stakeholders, are paying the price and struggling,’ said Mr. Woodley.
‘Record profits of over thirteen and a half billion pounds at Shell and cumulative oil industry profits in excess of 50 billion in the last three years are, quite frankly, obscene. It is time the government acted.’
Pressing the government to act he said a windfall tax would be the ‘right and proper’ thing to do over and above the normal taxes the oil companies would pay.
Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said the results were ‘satisfactory’.
‘We made good progress in 2007, launched new projects upstream and downstream, and achieved exploration successes,’ he added.