The UK Government handed Shell a £112m tax rebate last year, despite the oil giant making billions of pounds in profits.
Most of the payment from HM Revenue and Customs is a contribution towards Shell’s costs for decommissioning its North Sea oil and gas fields. It follows a similar payment of £85m in 2016.
The figures highlight how the North Sea has transformed from being a cash cow for the Government over four decades, to being a drain on the nation’s finances, as the remaining oil has become unprofitable to extract.
Energy research group Wood Mackenzie estimates that oil companies will spend £53bn from 2017 winding down North Sea fields but the Treasury will hand them back £24bn in tax relief.
In a January report, Wood Mackenzie said one fifth of the likely cost is will hit over the coming five years, meaning almost £5bn will be paid to oil companies by the end of 2021.
This is not the first time Shell has been criticised for its tax practices. The company paid no UK corporation tax in 2014, despite making a global profit of £19.87bn that year.
Shell said on Wednesday that it paid governments a total of £3.5bin in income taxes and £1.8bn in fees related to its extraction activities last year.
Jessica Uhl, Shell’s chief financial officer, said: “Shell believes that transparency is an essential tool in building trust in tax systems.
“Society expects clarity on the revenues that extractive industries pay to governments and at the same time expects governments to be open about the revenues they receive and how they use these funds.”
As part of its decommissioning, Shell has proposed to leave the 10 vast concrete legs of three oil rigs standing in the North Sea for up to 500 years.
The company’s proposals also include the controversial suggestion that oil mixed with sediment in 42 concrete storage cells – each up to 20 metres in diameter and 60 metres high, taller than Nelson’s Column – should remain on the sea bed.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
