Shell boss paid £8m in 2023 as oil and gas giant waters down climate pledge

Get the free Morning Headlines e-mail for information from our reporters the world over

Sign as much as our free Morning Headlines e-mail

The boss of Shell was paid almost £8m final yr, new figures confirmed on Thursday as the oil and gas giant watered down certainly one of its climate pledges.

Wael Sawan was handed a complete pay packet value £7.94m in the course of the interval, Shell stated, a discount from the £9.7m that his predecessor Ben van Beurden earned in 2022, though greater than Mr van Beurden’s pay bundle for 2021.

Mr Sawan’s bundle included a base wage of £1.4m, an annual bonus of £2.7m and a £2.6m long-term incentive cost.

The UK-based vitality giant additionally watered down certainly one of its climate ambitions, saying it was specializing in “value over volume” in the electrical energy sector.

The oil agency stated that it now desires to cut back the “net carbon intensity” of the vitality merchandise it sells by 15-20 per cent by 2030, in comparison with its earlier 20 per cent goal. The goal is measured towards 2016.

The enterprise defined the modified goal by saying it’s now planning to focus extra on promoting electrical energy to enterprise prospects, fairly than households. This signifies that its electrical energy gross sales is not going to rise as quickly as beforehand thought by 2030, slowing the speed at which the carbon depth might be minimize.

Last week BP, one other UK headquartered oil and gas giant, revealed that its new boss was paid greater than £8m in the final monetary yr earlier than he took excessive job full time.

Murray Auchincloss’s pay bundle consisted of greater than £1.5 million in wage, advantages and money in lieu of pension. He was additionally handed a £1.8 million bonus, and a bit of beneath £4.7 million in shares that have been linked to efficiency.

Mr Auchincloss was chief monetary officer for many of 2023, however took over as interim chief govt in September when his predecessor stepped down.

Meanwhile Shell set a brand new ambition to cut back the emissions which might be produced when prospects use its oil merchandise by 15-20 per cent by 2030 in comparison with 2021, part of so-called Scope 3 emissions.

Last month The Independent revealed that a few of the largest vitality firms working in the UK raked in “eye-watering” income of greater than £1bn per week throughout the globe as thousands and thousands of Britons struggled with the price of dwelling squeeze.

Shell, Equinor, ExxonMobil and BP – a few of the UK’s largest suppliers of gas – made £65bn in internet income in 2023, main campaigners to accuse the multinational corporations of “stoking the energy bills crisis”.