Shell’s profits rise 25% on the wings of global warming
Seriously, no lie. A 25% increase in profits., straight out of corporate PR’s mouth.
But wait! There’s more!
Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said on a conference call the company wasn’t investing money in projects that would require oil prices to remain this high to be profitable. “We don’t understand the oil price at this stage,” he said. “The fundamentals will not justify an oil price as we see it at the moment.”
He said the company is wary of predicting prices apart from a long-term upward trend, but said economists had expected demand to slacken in response to the high prices and with the U.S. economy slowing. However, he said that has so far failed to materialize because of continuing growth in the rest of the world.
To which I replied with a big fat middle finger, particularly when I saw the source of their soaring profits:
Earnings from oil production rose 52 percent to $5.14 billion, due almost entirely to the price increases. The company said combined production of gas and oil equivalents increased by less than 1 percent to 3.4 million barrels per day, as a 9 percent rise in gas production outweighed a 6 percent fall in oil production.
I hear over and over again about how global warming is melting the ice in the Arctic circle, right? That’s a bad thing, right? (It certainly is to me, and especially after enduring three days of 98-degree weather in an area which averages 72 degrees in April). But wait for it…the best is yet to come:
Voser said that the company was also investing in resources in or near the Arctic circle which have been difficult to access in the past because of the cold but “quite clearly we see as one source of energy going forward.”
Wow. Global warming benefits oil companies’ profit margins. How about we really, truly take seriously the idea of losing our dependence on oil as an energy source?
Also, could someone check the financials for the Bush blind trust to see how much is invested in the Shell companies? I’m guessing that with these profits, he’ll be a billionaire when he leaves office.
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