Shell former chief executive Ben van Beurden took home £9.7million last year- 294 times the average British wage – as oil giant posted a record £71.1billion profit thanks to soaring energy prices

• Shell’s annual report showed Ben van Beurden’s pay jumped from £6.3m in 2021
• Spokesman for Shell said pay package is ‘considered the appropriate quantum’ 

Shell’s former chief executive took home £9.7 million in pay and bonuses in 2022, up 53 per cent on the previous year, the firm’s annual report has revealed.

Shell’s annual report showed that Ben van Beurden’s pay jumped from £6.3 million in 2021, with the 2022 figure including a £2.6 million annual bonus and a £4.9 million long-term shares award on top of his £1.4 million annual salary. 

Campaigners found he earned in one year the amount a typical UK worker would earn in six lifetimes – and that his 2022 pay package was 294 times a Briton’s average salary.

The spotlight has been thrown on the energy firms after a record-breaking set of annual results from the sector, which comes at a delicate time given the cost-of-living crisis impacting firms, businesses – and families all around the country. 

A spokesman for Shell said the chief executive’s pay package is ‘considered the appropriate quantum for running a group of Shell’s scale and complexity’. 

Ben van Beurden’s pay jumped from £6.3 million in 2021 to £9.7 million in pay and bonuses in 2022

In 2014 a video was shared of van Beurden doing the ‘ice bucket challenge’ – water was poured over him by his two young daughters from buckets which were reportedly Veuve ­Clicquot champagne coolers

Mr van Beurden moved to Holland in 2014 – his villa in Wassenaar was said to have cost him £3.3million at the time

It comes after the oil giant posted a record 84.3 billion US dollar (£71.1 billion) profit for 2022 as it benefited from soaring energy prices, branded as ‘obscene’ at the time amid heavy criticism over the amount of tax paid by the group.

Mr van Beurden was replaced by Wael Sawan, Shell’s former head of gas and renewables, at the beginning of 2023.

Non-governmental organisation Global Witness said former Shell boss Ben van Beurden’s pay package for 2022 was 294 times the UK’s median salary.

Alice Harrison, fossil fuels campaign leader at Global Witness, said: ‘Shell’s CEO earned in one year what a typical UK worker would earn in six lifetimes.’

She added: ‘It’s a sign of just how broken our energy system is that Shell and other fossil fuel companies have made record-breaking profits from an energy crisis that’s forcing families to choose between heating their homes and putting food on the table.

‘We’re calling on the UK Government to implement a people-first windfall tax in next week’s Spring Budget, which includes executive bonuses, and to ensure a rapid transition to homegrown renewable energy sources that are cleaner and cheaper than oil and gas, and better for energy security.’

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said that the money that oil and gas companies made after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February should be helping struggling families.

‘It is outrageous that oil and gas bosses are raking in millions in bonuses while families struggle to heat their homes,’ he said.

Ben van Beurden with his wife Stacey – Mr van Beurden was replaced by Wael Sawan, Shell’s former head of gas and renewables, at the beginning of 2023

Read more: British Gas owner’s profits soar to £3.3BILLION

‘Rishi Sunak’s refusal to properly tax these eye-watering bonuses and record profits is mind boggling and shows how out of touch he is. It is completely unfair at a time when the Conservative government is choosing to put people’s energy bills up.

‘Whether it is executive bonuses or soaring profits, the money being made out of Putin’s illegal war should be helping struggling families not oil and gas barons.’

The group’s annual report also showed Mr Sawan was appointed on a £1.4 million annual salary, in line with his predecessor, plus a potential bonus worth 125 per cent of salary and long-term shares worth up to a maximum potential of 300 per cent of salary.

Bernardus Cornelis Adriana Margriet van Beurden climbed up the ladder after joining Shell from university in 1983. 

In 2014, van Beurden became CEO and moved his Australian wife Stacey and four children to the Hague from their home in West London, which sold for £3million, according to The Mirror. 

His property in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, was said to have cost him £3.3million at the time, and reportedly had a lawn like a ‘billiard table’, a sauna, marble floors and a pond. Reports last year said the property was up for sale for £5.5million. 

In 2014, a video was shared of van Beurden doing the then popular ‘ice bucket challenge’. The footage showed water being poured over him by his two young daughters from buckets which were reportedly Veuve ­Clicquot champagne coolers. 

A spokesman for Shell said: ‘The CEO’s remuneration package is reviewed carefully on an annual basis against a range of UK and international companies, to ensure reward packages are appropriately positioned against market.’

He added: ‘We fully appreciate the difficulties that the cost-of-living crisis is causing many people across the world.

‘Shell are taking steps to address it, such as doubling the hardship fund for vulnerable customers of our UK retail energy business.’

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