Shell boss says EU carbon plan could destroy oil industry in Europe

Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has given warning that a proposed EU scheme to force companies to pay for carbon emissions permits previously handed out free threatens to destroy Europe’s petrochemicals and refining industry.

Mr van der Veer told The Times that the EU needed to be careful not to trigger an exodus of European jobs and investment offshore with no net reduction in global emissions.


Speaking in The Hague, he said that the proposals would undermine the competitiveness of a struggling industry and have a cascading impact on Europe’s wider economy because of the close links between the region’s oil, chemicals and plastics industries, which collectively employ nearly two million people.

He said: