Shells profits

[Big Sig]

Following on from its all time high profits LINKY, what do you think should be done? When money is at its tightest, why are they allowed to make such massive profits?

[spennny]

I seen this yesterday, you would think they would pass some of the profits on to us , i.e lower fuel for a bit , 13.2bn is madness !!!

[ed taylor]

An obscene amount of profit that is. Mind you if they did reduce the cost of petrol at the pumps. I bet the government would then increase their tax on it, so in the end we would be no better off.

[Lump]

An obscene amount of profit that is. Mind you if they did reduce the cost of petrol at the pumps. I bet the government would then increase their tax on it, so in the end we would be no better off.

thats the problem though, its not the fuel price its the TAX on it

[ed taylor]

thats the problem though, its not the fuel price its the TAX on it

You would think in this reccession the government would reduce their tax on fuel. That would help all of the ecconomy in my opinion.

[Lump]

never going to happen, people will have to travel. until things stop being delivered or work starts suffering as people cant get there. it will always be high

[MLC]

The high cost of fuel is the high amount of tax..period!

Oil companies make their profits from exploration and invest heavily. (It's still a lot of money though)

[ed taylor]

Yes I think we all know the price of fuel at the pumps is mostly tax. It was once discribed to me as....... When you see a petrol tanker. (viewed from the side) the large part from the rear to where it gets smaller and sits on the 5th wheel.That is tax. The smaller part at the front above the 5th wheel is the rest, ie profit for the oil company. garage profit, transport "etc".
I thought it sort of puts it in to prospective when you see it like that. Government robbing theives.( stronger words were in my mind).

[G.O'Rilla]

Oil companies don't make much profit at all from refining/retail. That's why a lot of refineries have closed over the years - to make a margin they have to be really big. I think I read that Shell had a really bad 4th quarter as the oil price dropped.

Think about it for a moment....... The costs of exploration and extracting are largely fixed, so if the net cost of a barrel of oil from XYZ field is say $15 a barrel, it stands to reason that when the oil price moves up from say $30 a barrel to $100 a barrel then there is $70 per barrel extra profit.

Shell just did what Exxon, BP, Total, Chevron and Statoil all did - rode the wave! 2009 will be a bit leaner and the shareholders will crucify them.

It will make no difference to the pump price which is determined solely by tax and market forces - frequently your gasoline/diesel is sold into distribution at a loss to free up inventory and keep refinery throughput.

Hope that helps.

[ccsnet]

You would think in this reccession the government would reduce their tax on fuel. That would help all of the ecconomy in my opinion.

Wont happern.... how do you think the 'bail outs' will be funded... if any thing it will get worse.

Terran