Fuel Pricing in India

The price of fuel in different countries is affected by:

• Cost of buying finished product in the country (country supplies usually cheaper than importing product)
• Government excise and tax rates
• Government subsidies for fuel
• Currency fluctuations

Since the world's major crude oil market is generally traded in US dollars, any variation between a country's exchange rate and the US dollar will impact the cost of buying crude oil in that country.

Higher crude prices have contributed to company revenues, but oil industry profit margins have been in line with those of other industries.

Furthermore, energy companies need to continually invest billions of dollars each year, over the long term, to safeguard the future of their business and to ensure a sustainable energy supply for consumers. Producing crude oil involves long-term and high-risk projects requiring billions of dollars investment over 20-30 years (developing a single new oil field can cost over $1 billion). Higher profits in some periods help safeguard investments when oil prices, and hence profits, are lower at other times.

No. Shell only produces around 3% of the world's oil. The majority of the crude oil that is used in our refineries to make finished fuel products is bought on the open market. The price of crude oil is influenced primarily by:

• Increasing oil demand
• Limits in refining capacity
• Currency fluctuations
• Market speculation