IEA Chief Operating Officer and Energy Analyst Andy Mayer has appeared on talkTV to discuss Shell’s announcement of record-breaking £7.6 billion profits.

Andy said:

“The correct reaction to what are utterly unsurprising figures is ‘this is what we expected’…

“There isn’t much the UK government can do about the boom in global oil and gas prices, all they can do is try and retain our advantage as one of the homes to the oil industry such that we get some of the benefit back. The track record over the last year has been the opposite: they’ve been trying to discourage investment in the North Sea, they’ve banned fracking, they’ve sent a message to companies that if they invest in the UK, they will face arbitrary taxation if we don’t like the look of your profits.

“If we believe that we are going to need oil and gas for the next 20 to 30 years at least, probably a bit longer, which is what the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] says, then we should continue to invest and continue to use that money to reduce the cost of living for everybody and the cost of investing in alternatives.

“The government instead has just reacted to headlines and said ‘people are angry, therefore we’re going to tax you out of existence’…”

Watch Andy’s full appearance here (22:23:00).