Shell's 'obscene euro 17.80 billion profit is biggest ever by British company -

For the complete report from the the Daily Mail click on this link

Shell's 'obscene euro 17.80 billion profit is biggest ever by British company

Shell smashed all-time British company profit records today, posting 2007 earnings of euro 17.80 billion ($27.5billion, and immediately ran into a storm with union leaders, who are demanding the Government hits the oil giant with a windfall tax. Shell's profit surge - it is now making a staggering euro 48.65($75million)a day - on the back of a booming oil price that touched euro 64.87 ($100) a barrel this winter, was labeled as "obscene" by Tony Woodley of Unite, the UK's largest trade union, as Britons struggle with soaring energy costs. "Shell shareholders are doing very nicely while the rest of us are paying the price and struggling," said Woodley.

The Washington Post reporting about the obscene profits made by the oil industry noted: By most familiar comparisons, the euro 6.43 billion ($9.92) billion profit earned by Exxon Mobil Corp. in just three months is almost unimaginable. It would cover all Social Security benefit payments for three months. It would pay for an Ivy League education for about 60,000 kids. It would pay the average list price for more than 160 Boeing 737s. It would fund the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than two months. Yet oil industry representatives and Exxon Mobil made a game effort to cast the record profit, earned during a quarter in which the Gulf Coast was shattered by hurricanes and gas prices rose well above $3 a gallon, as middling at best.

However the oil industry is not the only one making large profits. Most financial institutions, such as commercial banks, are routinely more profitable than Exxon Mobil was in its third quarter. For example, Exxon Mobil's gross margin of 9.8 cents of profit for every dollar of revenue pales in comparison to Citigroup Inc.'s 15.7 cents in 2004. By percentage of total revenue, banking is consistently the most profitable industry in America, followed closely by the drug industry.It might be all relative but its large in actual numbers.