British energy giant Shell ensured the pay package for the company’s CEO jumped by half last year to nearly $12 million as oil and gas companies made record profits from runaway energy costs and consumers struggled with a global cost-of-living crisis.
AP reports London-based Shell paid Ben van Beurden a total of $11.5 million in 2022 as annual company profits doubled to an all-time high of $40 billion because Russia’s war in Ukraine sent oil and gas prices soaring.
Van Beurden stepped down at the end of last year after 40 years at the company.
He was replaced by Wael Sawan, who will be paid a base salary of 1.4 million pounds and a bonus that’s expected to be bigger than the salary, the report said.
Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy Saad Sherida al-Kaabi (R) and Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden hold a signing ceremony at QatarEnergy headquarters in Doha, on October 23, 2022. (KARIM JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Demands have increased for oil and gas companies raking in huge profits to do more to reduce high energy costs hurting consumers and small businesses, however they are showing little sign of complying.
Instead the companies and their share holders continue to profit.
Shell followed U.S.-based Exxon Mobil and Chevron to a record high last year, as Breitbart News reported.
Shell Plc posted adjusted earnings of $39.9 billion for 2022 in its financial results for the final three months of the year. Adjusted earnings in the fourth quarter, which exclude one-time items and fluctuations in the value of inventories, rose to $9.8 billion.
Exxon Mobil also made $56 billion in profit last year, its largest annual haul ever. Chevron earned $36 billion, another company record.