I'm Andrew Mackenzie. In my role as chair, I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2026 annual general meeting of Shell plc. I confirm that we do indeed have a quorum present. I declare the meeting formally open and suggest that, with your permission, the notice convening the meeting is taken as read. In accordance with the company's articles of association and as contemplated by the notice of the meeting, all resolutions will be decided on a poll rather than a show of hands. That poll is now open. I'm appointing the company's registrars, Equiniti, to act as scrutineers, and we'll shortly explain the voting process. Before we go any further, I'd like to show you our cautionary note. Let me also take a moment to thank all shareholders here today, all of you, for your patience and understanding, particularly with respect to the heightened security measures that have become normal at this event. Despite a reasonably smooth AGM in 2025, we still felt it necessary to implement these checks in the interests of everyone's safety. Partly we were acting on intelligence related to potential threats at other shareholder meetings, as well as specific concerns around today's gathering. As with last year, this meeting is a fully hybrid meeting with platforms provided for shareholders to vote and ask questions, both here in the meeting room and virtually. We also webcast the meeting so that we open this forum to the global public and any other interested stakeholders. The board and I extend a special welcome to everybody attending virtually. If I can turn to the overall process of today's meeting. Given that I've already formally opened the meeting and the poll, first, Sean Ashley, our Company Secretary, will explain the voting process. Next, I'll introduce my fellow board members, then we'll turn to business before moving on to questions. For those shareholders wanting to ask questions later on, if you're participating online, please refer to the guide on the Lumi platform. If you're here in the room and you haven't already registered a question, please go to the registration desk at the back of the room, where one of the team will help you do so. When asking questions or making any comment, I'd be very grateful if you could state your name and the name of the organization you represent, if that applies. In accordance with the company's articles of association and as stated in the notice of meeting, the meeting will be held in English. I respectfully request that you ask questions in English. Do please keep those questions and comments short, to the point, and relevant to the business of today's meeting, so other shareholders all have time to ask their questions. If I think your question or statement is excessively long, I will ask you to bring it to a close. I also request your patience if there's a lot of interest on any one particular issue. As chair of the meeting, I have a duty to make sure today's proceedings are conducted in a proper and orderly manner. I will do my best to make sure all shades of opinion are given a fair hearing. To help me fulfill my responsibilities, I ask you that you respect our procedures and the order of the meeting. As in 2025, we are also joined today on stage by Hannah Vaughan-Jones. Hannah is an external moderator who will assist me with the question portion of our meeting and help deal with questions coming from the room and also those submitted on Lumi. Hannah may moderate some questions to avoid repetition and help us achieve an orderly meeting. I would be really grateful for your patience as we work through these questions. Let me turn now to voting. Sean Ashley, as I said, the Company Secretary, will now be given the floor to explain the voting procedure. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. For those watching the meeting via the Lumi platform, a copy of the notice of meeting can be found under the Documents tab on your screen. For those watching on the webcast, it can be found within the General Meetings section of our website. Resolutions numbered 1 to 18 and 22 are proposed as ordinary resolutions, and therefore, in order to be passed, each requires a simple majority of the votes cast to be in favor. Resolutions 19 to 21 and 23 are proposed as special resolutions, and therefore, in order to be passed, each of these resolutions requires at least a 75% majority of the votes cast to be in favor. Many of you will have already sent in your proxy cards and do not need to vote again. Voting will remain open throughout the meeting and for 15 minutes following the conclusion of the meeting. Once you have voted, you can change your vote, but when voting closes, your last choice will be submitted. For those here in the room, please cast your votes by completing your white paper poll card handed to you at registration. If you agree with the resolution, place an X in the box marked For. If you do not agree, place an X in the box marked Against. If you wish to abstain, place an X in the box marked Vote Withheld. However, please note that the Vote Withheld option is not a vote in law and will not be counted in the votes either for or against the resolution. The scrutineer will establish from the register how many shares you hold and will assume you wish to vote all your shares in the way you've indicated. If you wish to split your vote, please speak to a member of staff at the registration desk. If you have lodged a proxy form, you do not need to complete a poll card unless your proxy is not present or you wish to change the way your shares are voted. Please remember to sign your card and add today's date, May the 19th, 2026. Please note if you do not sign your card, your votes will not be counted. Please then deposit your card in one of the ballot boxes which you will see clearly marked as you leave the auditorium. These boxes will be removed 15 minutes after the conclusion of the meeting or earlier if I'm satisfied that the voting process has been completed. The final results of the poll votes, including the tally of votes cast by shareholders attending online today, will be sent to the Amsterdam, London, and New York Stock Exchanges, will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and shown on the Shell website tomorrow morning or later today if time permits. Thank you for your time and for your votes, and with that, back to you, Chair. Thanks, Sean. Let me introduce your directors who are seeking re-election today, with the exception of Neil Carson and Catherine Hughes, who will stand down at the close of business of the AGM. They leave with our best wishes, and we thank them for their valuable contributions. Shareholders will also be asked to vote on the appointment of Holly Keller-Koppel and Clare Scherrer, and directors' biographies are all provided in the notice of meeting, which was duly circulated to shareholders on the 13th of April and was added to our website on the same date. Starting with those in the room, on my right, Wael Sawan, our Chief Executive Officer, then we have Sinead Gorman, our Chief Financial Officer, and on my left, as I've already indicated, is our Company Secretary, Sean Ashley. Proceeding now with our non-executive directors, we have on Sean's left, Dick Boer, who's our Deputy Chairman and the Senior Independent Non-Executive Director. He's also a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, the Nomination and Succession Committee, and the Remuneration Committee. Given that we're seeking approval for a new directors' remuneration policy, Cyrus Taraporevala, our Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee, is also attending physically. Attending the meeting virtually, we can now see live on screen that we have Ann Godbehere, who's Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and/or member of the Nomination and Succession Committee, and Catherine Hughes, Chair of the Sustainability Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. The other non-executive directors, whose pictures you can now see on the screen, are also attending the AGM virtually, with the exception of Neil Carson, who is unable to attend the meeting and sends his apologies. Ladies and gentlemen, let's move to the business of the meeting. You can see the very best of Shell even in those most turbulent of times. Recent weeks have been no exception as colleagues have worked tirelessly through the volatility in the Middle East to keep each other safe, to care for one another, and as much as possible to keep energy flowing. I'm immensely proud of how our people, Shell people, have responded. As well as being a testament to the excellence and resourcefulness of Shell staff, the challenges to navigation in the Strait of Hormuz have been a powerful reminder how the world that we operate in is shaped by geography. A decade ago, the British journalist Tim Marshall coined the term Prisoners of Geography, saying, "Technology may seem to overcome the distances between us, but our choices will always be shaped by the rivers, mountains, deserts, lakes, and seas that constrain us all." As a geologist by training, I see the world in a similar way. I'm often mindful how the resources endowed miles beneath the ground can have such a dramatic implication or implications for the life we live above it. While geography and geology might define the landscape, what matters is how you navigate it. At Shell, we are navigators of geography and geology. We work within them, we adapt them, at this time when humanity most recently pushes even further into space, we bring the same sense of possibility to some of the most demanding frontiers here on Earth. For instance, our Sparta platform in the Gulf of Mexico will operate at the frontier of what humans have engineered when it comes on stream in 2028 as expected. In Canada, we've seen that although you can't move mountains, you can connect customers with what lies beyond them, linking inland gas resources to LNG Canada on the Pacific coast and from there shipping LNG to meet the rising energy demand across Asia. Every day through trading and supply, we connect customers with the energy they require, we bridge the gap between energy and the demand for it is found. To do all of that, we must also navigate the geopolitics that flows from geography and geology because it's geopolitics that draws the contours of the great challenges of our time. The first of those challenges is energy security. Something recent disruptions, as I've already spoken about, have reminded us that can never be taken for granted. The second is rising global energy demand. As populations grow, economies develop, prosperity expands, and the third is climate change and the drive towards a low carbon energy system. Later this year, I'm planning to travel to see our operations in Malaysia, including those around the city of Miri on the island of Borneo. It's a place where you see those challenges playing out together. A century ago, Miri was just a small fishing village. Today, it's a modern, thriving city. That's a story that's repeated across our world, where billions of people aspire to higher income lifestyles that many of us take for granted. Those aspirations depend on one thing above all, access to secure and affordable energy. When such conditions are met, economies grow, prosperity follows, and expectations rise. That progress cannot be assumed, as recent events remind us. When energy supply is disrupted, the effects are felt quickly and often far beyond their source, which is why energy security remains so vital. Human progress asks more of us than energy security alone. Borneo is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Miri's location is a reminder that the forces that drive growth must also be balanced with the protection of the natural environment and the challenge of climate change. While the pace of the energy transition differs from place to place, the direction of travel is clear, and we're committed to play our part in helping decarbonize the global energy system in a way that meets rising demand, supports energy security, and addresses climate change. How does Shell navigate those concurrent challenges? For me, it starts with integration. Shell's vision is clear, to become the world's leading integrated energy company. Today, I believe more firmly than ever that this is the right vision for Shell and the world we operate in. Consider what we achieve through integration. See integration as a global choreography of people, assets, and decisions to provide people with the energy they need, safely executed in some of the most demanding environments on Earth, with feats of coordination and precision that wouldn't be out of place on a space mission. We're able to do that because of the advantages that we've built over more than a century. Our operations are geographically diversified across more than 70 countries, and our sources of energy supply are diversified too, with more recently, phase 1 of LNG Canada and our announcement recently to acquire ARC Resources, a very powerful illustration of that diversification in action. Our trading and supply capability extends that reach further still. Of course, we have a diverse and brilliant workforce equipped to navigate our changing world. Integration supports something else too, which is flexibility to handle today's turbulence. Just three months ago, markets were preparing for a $60 a barrel world. Just weeks later, prices are close to double that, and the next move could be in either direction. This is the stark reality of the environment that we operate in, and we've built a business that can respond as conditions change. Flexibility also guides how we think about the world in the long term. Through Shell Scenarios, we think systemically about how the world might evolve and explore multiple plausible futures. Shell Scenarios, though, aren't our strategy. They aren't our business plans or predictions, but they stretch management to consider a range of possibilities. We update that thinking and regularly share our thinking regularly and share much of it openly because there's value in shareholders understanding how we think. You see the same transparency in the strategic spotlight on LNG, which we released in March, and where we set out our thinking on one of the most important parts of our business. Why we see LNG as a stabilizing force in the global energy system, and why we believe because of its long-term growth potential that LNG creates a significant opportunity for Shell. When it comes to renewables and the technologies that will shape the energy system of the future, we're equally open with shareholders about our approach. We maintain flexibility across technologies so that as markets mature and conditions strengthen, we're ready to compete. With already around GBP 20 billion of capital employed across these lower carbon platforms and around half a billion dollars of our annual R&D spend directed towards technologies that support decarbonization. Through it all, we deliver returns our shareholders can count on, returns that have proved resilient through the cycle, through many cycles, even as cycles have been reshaped by wars and other disruptions. In 2025 last year, through dividends and share buybacks, we distributed 52% of cash flow from operations to shareholders. In quarter one of this year, we marked the 18th consecutive quarter of share buybacks of $3 billion or more while continuing to grow value per share. Clearly a reflection of the strength, the underlying strength of our business. Before I hand over to Wael, let me leave you with this. We live in volatile times where straits can close and markets can move in seconds, and long-held assumptions can quickly change. What these moments reveal, and what they've always revealed, is that Shell is built for exactly this. Through our brilliant people, we navigate a complex world, we keep energy flowing, and plan for multiple futures, we're ready for whatever lies beyond the horizon. That means when you ask what Shell will look like in 10, 20, or 30 years, I won't give you a single answer. What I can tell you is this. Where demand rises, our determination is to help meet it. Where the energy system is ready to change, we're ready to move with it. When the world looks for a business that can navigate the complexity of the decades ahead, Shell can be that business. Thank you. Over to you, Wael. Thank you very much, Sir Andrew, and thank you, our shareholders, for joining us today. We are, of course, meeting at a time of profound change, one that continues to impact colleagues, customers, and the communities that we serve at Shell. It underlines the critical importance of energy, and for us as a company, it also highlights the value of our history navigating complexity, as well as the importance of the progress that we are making as we continue to transform Shell. I'll return to that point of transformation in a moment. Let me say first that my thoughts are with everyone who has been and continues to be affected by the conflict in the Middle East. For many of us at Shell, this is not just something happening on the news. It is happening where we live, where we work, and where our family and our friends are based. We have around 2,500 staff working in the affected countries, along with many more contractors and family members. From the start of this crisis, their safety and well-being have been our priority. In this difficult period, I could not be more proud of the way that all of our colleagues, both in the region and outside it, have cared for and supported each other and gone the extra mile to keep supplying vital energy and products for our customers. A few weeks ago, I visited our Pearl GTL plant in Qatar, where we as a company have seen the most significant direct effects of the conflict. I saw the damage caused to part of Pearl GTL from a missile strike in March. As someone who previously oversaw Shell's business in Qatar, I was so inspired by the colleagues who not only did incredible work to safely shut down the site, but who are also now focused on returning this important facility back into service. We currently estimate it will take around one year for the damaged part of the site to be up and running, while the rest of the site is start-up ready, subject to our ability to move products through the Straits of Hormuz. As I said earlier, the crisis has provided yet another reminder of the fundamental importance of energy. Energy underpins economic and industrial strategy, digital security, and climate goals. In other words, there is no national security without energy security. The world needs to maintain secure energy supplies while accelerating the transition to affordable low-carbon solutions, and while also meeting the rising global demand for energy, which last year rose by more than the entire annual energy consumption here in the U.K. Shell plays an important role in keeping that energy flowing, helping to provide the oil and gas that the world needs today while helping to build the energy system of the future with low-carbon energy products and solutions. It calls on us to be the best possible version of ourselves, to continue transforming and adapting, and to keep building a stronger Shell for the long term so that we are best positioned through uncertainty or complexity to keep providing energy directly or indirectly to around 1 billion people every year who depend on us for it. The methodical transformation of our company that we began in 2023 is bearing fruit, and this can be clearly seen in last year's performance. When I stood here at our AGM last year, I emphasized above all else the importance to Shell of delivering on what we say, and that is exactly what we have done. In 2023, we set out ambitious financial targets at our Capital Markets Day. We met them. Last year, we raised the bar and set targets that went even further. We said that we would reduce our structural costs by $5 billion-$7 billion by the end of 2028 compared with 2022. By the end of last year, three years ahead of schedule, we had already achieved $5.1 billion of reductions. We have also made solid progress on our climate targets and ambition. By the end of 2025, we had achieved around 70% of our target to halve our Scope 1 and 2 operational emissions by 2030 compared with 2016. At the same time, we reduced the net carbon intensity of the energy products we sell by 9% compared with 2016, moving towards our target of a 15%-20% reduction by 2030. Our progress demonstrates that we are moving in the right direction and shows the part that we are playing in helping to decarbonize the global energy system. This is a business that is becoming stronger and more resilient. In 2025, we saw LNG sales increasing by 11%. Our mobility and lubricants businesses experiencing their best ever results and shareholder distributions at the top end of our target range. I am so grateful to everyone at Shell for their hard work and their determination in 2025, which has taken us even further down our path of transformation. Even after another year of progress, there is much more to do. If we are to achieve our vision of being the world's leading integrated energy company, we need to set our sights even higher. We will keep applying the discipline and the focus that has got us this far. One area where we must do better is safety. Every single one of our colleagues and contractors deserves to go home safely after work. It is a cause of great concern and sadness to me that in 2025, four colleagues lost their lives working on routine activities in tragic incidents in Malaysia, Argentina, and here in the U.K. Earlier this month, two colleagues in India sadly died following an electrical incident. These tragedies remind us why our commitment to safety must be unwavering, and I'm determined that we continue strengthening safety right across the business. We owe it to those we have lost, to their friends and their families, and to everyone who works for us to learn from these incidents and ensure that these tragedies never happen again. As we look to the future, we will continue with our strategy to deliver more value with less emissions. First, we will keep growing our integrated gas and LNG business. We see gas, including LNG as a stabilizing force in energy systems because it is versatile, flexible and reliable, supporting the rapid growth of renewable energy and offering a lower carbon alternative to coal for industry and power generation, as well as to diesel and fuel oil for heavy duty transport and for shipping. In 2025, we delivered a record number of LNG cargoes in a single year, and we believe this will remain a major growth area for us in the future, with global demand for LNG expected to increase by between 45% and 85% by 2050. June last year saw an important milestone, the first shipments leaving our LNG Canada joint venture, expanding our global LNG portfolio even further and helping to diversify the world's gas supplies, adding greater resilience at times of volatility. LNG Canada exemplifies our strategy of delivering more value with less emissions. It has the capacity to deliver 14 million tons of LNG a year, roughly equivalent to the natural gas used in Singapore and Vietnam in 2025 combined. It offers a strategic and advantageous route to Asian markets with a shipping time of around 10 days, less than half the time it takes cargoes to transit from the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, it is designed to be one of the lowest carbon intensity LNG facilities in the world, supported by energy efficient natural gas turbines and hydroelectricity for additional power. Last month, we announced an agreement to acquire ARC Resources in Canada, a strong strategic fit that will unlock value for many years to come. It will expand our portfolio by securing shale gas and liquid production in Canada's Montney Basin, and it will offer potential to support the growth in LNG in Canada. The second pillar of our strategy is to keep our liquids production stable because as the events of the past few months have underlined, meeting demand for oil will be essential and for decades to come. Last year, we increased our interests in the Gulf of Mexico and in Brazil and recorded our highest quarterly production in the Gulf of Mexico in 20 years. This year, we achieved another record when our Mars platform became the first asset in the Gulf of Mexico to reach 1 billion barrels of oil production. Third, we will keep transforming our downstream renewables and energy solutions businesses. Our strong performance in mobility and lubricants was supported by the divestment or closure of lower performing branded retail sites. We continue to reshape our portfolio and focus on where we can play to our strengths. To do this, we have had to take some difficult decisions where we did not see sufficient returns on investment, like completing the divestment of our energy and chemical park in Singapore and stopping construction on our Rotterdam biofuels plant in the Netherlands because it would not have been competitive enough to meet our customers' needs for affordable low-carbon products. Our portfolio is now as streamlined as it has ever been, better representing where we can add value as a company. We have around $20 billion of our capital employed across lower carbon platforms, including pioneering projects like our Northern Lights joint venture on Norway's west coast. This is the world's first cross-border commercial carbon transport and storage service, and it's now up and running, transporting CO2 from industrial customers and injecting it beneath the Norwegian Sea. It currently has the capacity to store around 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year, and under our planned phase 2 expansion, this will be scaled up to 5 million tons. That's equivalent to the emissions of over 1 million cars. This shows the contribution that we can make to the energy transition and the opportunities on offer where we see the right environment for investment and where demand shows from our customers. We are also progressing with Holland Hydrogen I in the Netherlands, one of the biggest renewable hydrogen projects in Europe. By advancing the development of large-scale renewable hydrogen, this project represents an important step in moving from pilot scale activity to true deployment in hard to abate industrial sectors. The story of the past year is the story of a continuing transformation that is delivering results. We are a leaner and more competitive company than when I stood at this podium a year ago, well-equipped to navigate complexity and change. We are moving forward with momentum and with focus to unlock the full potential of Shell to deliver for our shareholders, partners, and customers, and to continue to connect the world with the energy that it needs. Thank you very much. Well done. Thank you, Wael. We now come, we've now come to the part of the meeting where you have the opportunity to ask questions. You may have seen in the notice of meeting that most of the resolutions are of a mainly routine nature for our listed plc, with the exception of Resolution 23. As a reminder, this is a special resolution which has been requisitioned by a group of shareholders represented by Follow This. For reasons previously expressed and outlined in the detail of the notice of meeting, your directors unanimously recommend that shareholders vote against this resolution. We'll shortly, we will shortly hear from Mr. van Baal, who will tell you more about this resolution. I'd like now to pass over to Hannah, who will take us through the questions. Thank you very much, Chair, a very good morning to you, ladies and gentlemen. To make sure of an orderly discussion today, we will take questions in the following order. For all questions or comments about Shell's strategy, as well as any questions of an operational nature, including those about Shell's climate targets, we will take these first. We will take all questions regarding the remaining resolutions. If I could please remind you to keep questions to the point and short, preferably no longer than a few minutes, so that we can get through as many as possible here today. As Andrew Mackenzie has already alluded to, for those asking questions, whether it be via the teleconference facility or indeed on the line or in the room, I would ask that you give your name and the name of your organization, if relevant when asking a question or indeed making any comment. Let's start with Mr. Van Baal. Mr. Van Baal, please, I believe you have a short statement to make about your resolution. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah. Mr. Chairman, directors, fellow shareholders, a company with so much capital and so much expertise should be able to reinvent itself. This could have been my words, but these were the words of your predecessor Wael Sawan, Ben van Beurden. I would never have thought I would never say this, ever, but I miss Ben once in a while. At least he tried to pretend Shell was in an energy transition. It was too little too late, as we experienced during the COVID crisis when you had to cut, Shell had to cut dividend by two-thirds, but at least Ben tried. The definite cut appeared during a temporary decline. Dear shareholders, imagine what will happen when demand declines structurally. This is a very plausible scenario. Therefore, our Shell resolution has a very simple and fair ask. Our resolutions ask Shell to disclose how it would create shareholder value under scenarios of declining oil and gas demands. It's not a radical ask. It's not an ideological one. It's not a hypothetical one. It's a financial one. The IEA and many of your shareholders consider this a base case, declining demand. Once again, with this resolution, Follow This ignites debate Shell wants to avoid. First, we ignite a debate about accountability for a ll emissions. Now we ignite a debate about the unsustainability of a carbon-based business model. This is a question any responsible board would welcome. Mr. Mackenzie, you just said, "We value, in shareholders, we value that shareholders understand our thinking." I think you also should value you understanding your shareholders' thinking, because you advised your shareholders to vote against this simple ask. Dear shareholders, this is really a strategy vacuum. Today, shareholders, you have a meaningful lever. Vote for Resolution 23. A strong vote will signal that this board cannot suppress legitimate shareholder concerns. With an oil price of $110 today, when we filed the resolution, it was $62, it's easy to be distracted by temporary war profits and lose sight of the long term. Today, we will see how many shareholders look at the long term, and with looking at the long term, they will urge you to disclose your plan for a declining market. They will do so by voting for your resolution, Resolution 23. As you've just showed that a significant number of shareholders, 13%, has voted for this resolution. Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Sawan, shareholders ask you a simple question. You have advised them to vote against, effectively to vote against their own interest to be informed. Our question today is: Why do you not want to share your plan to create shareholder value when oil and gas demand declines? Thank you very much. Wael, I'll hand over to you to answer that. Thank you very much, Mr. Mackenzie. Hannah, thank you, Mark, for coming here to raise this in person, and welcome to all our investors who are here today that have also supported the resolution. At Shell, we continue to welcome constructive challenge and engagement with our shareholders and have carefully considered this resolution. Our full response has been indeed set out in the notice that was published ahead of this year's AGM. I'd like to briefly summarize why we recommend that shareholders reject this resolution. Firstly, it goes against the principles of basic good governance that we all want to see at Shell. It serves to embed only two prescriptive scenarios from a single source, IEA, that are subject to change into the company's constitution. Your board believes this resolution could create precedent for recurring single-source scenario-based disclosure, which ultimately adds costs without helping our investors. Secondly, this resolution would not just be damaging, but duplicative, because these disclosures requested are already covered by existing disclosures. We already update shareholders on a regular basis on our strategy against a variety of different price scenarios, and we provide disclosures so shareholders can model the impact of any price scenario that they choose. The resolution covers changes in global oil and gas volumes. Shell is not an oil and gas producer with high marginal costs, so the two specific IEA scenarios do not materially change our production outlook over the coming decade. In fact, Shell's strategy has long been to secure oil and gas production that is advantaged on costs and carbon, offering us resilience in different demand scenarios. It is for these reasons, and those set out in our notice at the AGM, that the board unanimously recommends that you vote against this resolution. Thank you, Hannah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let me repeat the question. We've heard all your excuses not to publish this, but we haven't heard why you don't want to publish a scenario for the declining market. I've not heard an answer to that, my only answer, I will answer for you then. You don't have an idea. You don't wanna get out of your comfort zone and think about other business models than oil and gas, and that's, dear shareholders, very worrisome. Oil demand will decline in the 2030s, as predicted by the IEA, and Shell doesn't want to respond to that. It has no plan. Not a plan to diversify, not a plan to increase market share in a declining market, not even a plan to wind down, and that's very worrisome for shareholders. 13% of your shareholders wants to know an answer to this question. I hope you're gonna provide it in the next year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Van Baal. We continue on with some further questions, the next one also coming from the room. This is from Tarek Bouhouch. Tarek, over to you. Good morning. Thank you so much. My name is Tarek Bouhouch, and I am here on behalf of Follow This. Shell's proposed acquisition of the ARC Resources adds approximately 370,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and targets production growth of 4% per annum through 2030, despite the IEA scenarios referenced in Resolution 23, projecting demand peaking and declining within that same timeframe. Potentially, it is a $16 billion of future assets with uncertain shareholder value and sustained demand contraction. The board says these risks are captured through price sensitivities, but Resolution 23 concerns a different risk, long-term demand decline, not just cyclical price volatility. Is Shell $16 billion investment in ARC based on the assumption that long-term demand remains growing? Okay, well No, it should. I'm on. It is okay, Mike. Excuse me, just to compose myself. Well, thank you, Mr. Bouhouch for that question. I am going to hand it to Wael in a moment because obviously he has been very close along with Sinead in steering this acquisition and understands the details of the economics. I just put it to you that, you know, a couple of comments from Wael's remarks is that we don't believe that our production is at the margin of the most costly production that is out there right now. We believe it is strongly within that margin, therefore just simply looking at us as a sort of net addition to world demand is not appropriate. Having said that, of course, we have other views that we consider that we do see a growth in demand for hydrocarbon production going well into the 2030s and possibly beyond. Wael. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the question as well. Very pleased with the recent announcement. What we see, of course, and we laid that out when ACCR, one of our shareholders last year, asked questions about LNG. While shareholders voted against that resolution, we still provided a lot of details on LNG as part of our LNG spotlight report. In essence, what it talks about is the future demand for LNG, an important energy source that, as we said, is a stabilizing force in energy systems. LNG will play a very important role in actually partnering up with renewables to be able to provide that stability to the grid, but also as a potential fuel source to replace coal in power grids, as well as to replace fuel oil and diesel in vehicles, heavy transport vehicles. We do think LNG will play a very important role. The ARC Resources acquisition, in essence, creates a particularly advantaged source of gas, one that could potentially go into our existing LNG facility. The attractiveness of it is that it is the lowest carbon efficiency of any of the LNG projects out there in the market at the moment, and it is one that has one of the lowest costs as well. To your broader question, when we look at any acquisition or look at any business plan, we are always looking at multiple scenarios of demand. What is, particularly intriguing about this opportunity that we have taken it is so low on the cost curve that it allows us to have high confidence in its ability to be able to supply energy to customers, both domestically and internationally, for decades to come. Thank you. And can I maybe add, our opposition to this resolution is not just based to what's in the resolution, it's the nature of the resolution itself. I mean, putting special resolutions to the board, we believe is just poor governance. What I was trying to reflect on in my speech was the fact that we have very active conversations with all our shareholders about matters of strategy. They inform things. They may ask us for more disclosures. We provide them directly or through our investor relations group. And we feel this is a much more sensible way to conduct a debate rather than putting resolutions that actually remove the accountability of the board, which has to be based on ever-changing conditions rather than to be locked in by one particular resolution. Am I understanding well your answer when you say that there is a part of the analysis in the acquisition of ARC Resources where you do model a long-term demand contraction? If I'm understanding well, I believe investors would love to see that. We have shown in the ACCR response multiple different scenarios and the impacts of those scenarios. Once again, I will repeat what we said. We are resilient both on cost and on carbon, and therefore are comfortable with the long-term value opportunity that we have invested in here. Thank you for the question. You keep answering cost when we ask for volumes. You know that, Mr. Sawan. Maybe just a basic sort of clarification. The demand is going to potentially drop over time, to your point. The question is going to be what is going to be the lowest cost molecule that is resilient? What we have said is there are scenarios where demand grows for the next 20 years, scenarios where it's flat, and scenarios where it might drop. The question is, in a scenario where demand might drop, how resilient is this acquisition? This is a very resilient acquisition. Our question is about shareholder value creation, not resilience, sir. The ability to be able to continue to create value at low cost means you have a margin to create value out of. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Let's move on. Thank you very much, Mr. Bouhouch. We move now on to another question from the floor as well. This comes from Raj Singh. Mr. Singh. Thank you. Dear Chair, board members, and fellow shareholders. My name is Raj Singh, and I'm here on behalf of Standard Life plc, the U.K.'s largest long-term savings and retirements business. I'm making this statement as part of the Climate Action 100+ Global Investor Initiative, and also including MN, Aberdeen Investments, Aegon Asset Management UK, Aegon Asset Management, Aegon UK, Candriam, and Robeco, together representing around GBP 1.48 trillion in assets under management and administration. We acknowledge the progress the company's made on Scope 1 and 2 operational emissions reduction and on methane management, including routine flaring. Each of these represents a meaningful commitment delivered. On the other hand, parts of the low-carbon business have experienced significant rationalization. Greater clarity on Shell's longer-term low-carbon priorities, capital allocation, and areas of competitive advantage grounded in financial materiality will help shareholders better understand how resilience and strategic optionality are being built through the energy transition. We continue to engage with Shell constructively and in good faith because we believe that a credible transition plan and a resilient long-term portfolio strategy are inseparable objectives, both ultimately in the interest of shareholders and aligned with our fiduciary duty. It is in that spirit that we put the following questions to the board. First, since Shell's portfolio and production growth trajectory have changed materially since Energy Transition Strategy 2024 and the shareholder vote, can the board confirm its commitment to put the new transition plan to an advisory shareholder vote at the earliest opportunity? Second, after retiring the 2035 NCI target, the company has said that ETS 2027 was the earliest convenience to provide visibility of a new emissions trajectory to 2035. Could the company commit to providing greater visibility on the specific actions and abatement pathways expected to 2035? Finally, Shell states that its approach to human rights is informed by the UN Guiding Principles and that it supports the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Both standards make clear that a company's responsibility to respect human rights extends to risks arising through ongoing business relationships, regardless of ownership. Following the divestment of SPDC, Shell still maintains financial and commercial relationships with the SPDC joint venture and its new operator, Renaissance. Yet the annual report 2025 does not disclose specific human rights or environmental risks linked to these relationships, nor how Shell uses its leverage to address them. How does the board ensure that Shell's post-divestment practices are aligned with these standards, and will it commit to enhanced disclosure on these risks and actions going forward? We kindly ask that you respond to these recommendations for further dialogue. Thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Singh, for those questions. I completely endorse your request for further dialogue. We're very happy to have regular conversations with you and any shareholder at any point in the year as we're developing, or in years to come, as we're developing, in some ways, answers to your questions. I think the most important thing, and this, I think for the benefit of all shareholders, really deals with questions one and two, is that we are now two-thirds the way through our Energy Transition Strategy 2024, which Shu referred to, we have another year yet to run. We completely accept that we have to then provide an update of what follows because we only set out a three-year plan. So far, we're on target with the plan we set out for 2024. We do take all our shareholder engagements very seriously, and I anticipate as the board, and it's a major piece of work that the board are undertaking, through our strategy days and through board meetings in the second half of this year, as they become in a form that we would like to test them with shareholders, we will come out and talk to you as we did with Energy Transition Strategy 2024. However we decide to extend things beyond 2027. I'm sure that we will have the appropriate targets around what we commit to of more value with less emissions. As always, we hope to get it right, so we can provide you, as shareholders, enhanced visibility of what we're planning to do. I think on the human rights issue, that's a bit more specific. I mean, of course, they're fundamental to Shell's core values of honesty, integrity, and respect for people. We have a set of general business principles that we expect everybody in Shell to work to, and we encourage suppliers to adopt equivalent practices. The reality is that, you know, as you're speaking directly, I think about some of the things to do with Nigeria. Last year, as you're aware, we divested our onshore position in Nigeria to a company called Renaissance, a company that is very experienced, knows what it's doing, and it undertook very much in line with what we were saying to continue with the principles that SPDC, which was the Shell operating vehicle on the onshore previously before we now passed it over to Renaissance. It undertook to really continue very much the practices and the principles that we had followed as SPDC. Of course, we still have contacts with Renaissance. I mean, they, there are certain goods and so on where we need to have some supply. We work with them. In general, as with all contractors and suppliers, we offer our group conduct, a code of conduct, I should say, to them and ask them to have equivalence in many ways that could contribute to everything we're talking about today, as well as human rights, of course, a whole range of sustainability issues as well. You clearly want to continue the conversation on this, so d o we. I'm sure you have contacts within investor relations. I encourage you to continue the debate with them, particularly as we move through or as it relates to your questions or your parts of your question one and two, as we move through what follows Energy Transition Strategy 2024 and what we might have to say at the meeting next or the AGM meeting next year. Thank you. Just to follow up on the first one. Is that to understand that there's no decision made on whether to hold a vote on the strategy when it comes to Shell? We have to debate all of that, and we will make that decision in the light of what we conclude as a board is the best way forward post Energy Transition Strategy 2024. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Singh. The next question, the next few questions actually are written submissions, through the online platform. I will read them out, on the shareholders' behalf. The first one comes from Desmond Charles of Marshas McDermott, who says, "The world is changing rapidly. Governments, communities, investors, and industries increasingly recognize the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels towards cleaner and more sustainable energy systems. In this context, does the board accept that there is now a moral imperative for Shell not only to stop new oil and gas expansion, but also to begin a planned reduction of existing fossil fuel production in line with a safe and just transition? As such a powerful global force, Shell has the capacity to lead by example rather than follow behind change. What specific actions and timelines will Shell commit to in order to reduce oil and gas production, rapidly scale up investment in renewable energy, and align the company's future with moral responsibility, climate justice, ecological stewardship, and the protection of future generations? Well, thank you, Mr. McDermott. I mean, I think the simplest way I can answer this question is that in all of our scenarios and indeed our plans for the future evolution of the energy system, we see that hydrocarbons will continue to play a significant role, both oil and gas. The way we handle that is, of course, that we are investing in a number of ways in which we can decarbonize the impact of the use of hydrocarbons. The CEO in his speech talked at length about some of the investments we're making, for example, in carbon capture and storage. Both of us referred to the fact that we have about $20 billion of capital employed in alternatives to hydrocarbons, which we will certainly allow to flourish when we see the appropriate demand coming from our customers for it that makes further expansions profitable. Even in those situations, we expect hydrocarbon consumption will and production will continue for decades to come. We clearly, in the interest of looking after the security of supply and the affordability of energy for our customers, need to be part of that production, whilst in many ways figuring out how at the same time we can stand for some steady decarbonization, as you have already seen with some of the results that Wael referred to in our progress on Energy Transition Strategy 2024. Thank you very much, Chair. Another written submission. This comes from Siobhan McGovern. "LAPFF values the ongoing engagement with the company regarding its LNG strategy. For context, LAPFF represents the interests of 88 U.K. public sector pension fund members and six pools with combined assets of over GBP 425 billion. The question for the board today is, given the ongoing disruption in the Middle East, to what extent has the board accounted of the potential for permanent demand loss in key LNG markets? How have those scenarios been updated for the current conflict? How does the board quantify and monitor reputational risk from severe price volatility? Okay. There's a lot in that question. I probably can't answer all of it. Maybe it will be catered for other questions yet to come. I think, first of all, what I would like to say is that I'm glad, and I've heard this from many shareholders, that LAPFF values the ongoing engagement we've had regarding our LNG strategy. I think the opportunity that we've had since our last AGM to speak to many shareholders about it, to publish the note we did in March, has been very positive for us as, if you like, stewards of the company. I think and I've heard very positive and similar remarks about the openness and the way in which we conduct these conversations from a wide range of shareholders quite recently when I went on an investor roadshow just at the back end of April. I'm reading your question just to make sure I answer everything. I mean, you asked the question about whether what's happened in the Middle East could lead to a straight change in the strategy relative to what was talked about, if you like, before the events flared up in the Gulf of Arabia. The answer is, of course, we debate that, but it's very much a moving feast right now. You know, it's far from settled. I guess if you were to ask us to talk, again, just very roughly, we as a board would say, the strategy we've laid out is one that is for several decades ahead, and the one we had the conversations with shareholders without up to March. We don't see a significant change to that strategy at the moment because of the inherent attractiveness of LNG that Wael mentioned in his speech as something that, you know, helps people to decarbonize by moving away from coal and other materials, but also provides a very important backup to renewable generation for when, you know, they're not unable to just store renewable electrons for a reasonable period of time. It's no longer- you're no longer finding enough wind blowing or sun shining or whatever. Without that, renewables can't grow. We see the demand strength being there. Exactly how it plays out, there may come a point when we want to think again. It's related to the conversations that we're having today, where, you know, we will have a, as a board, very significant interrogation of our strategy, you know, on all respects as it relates to more value with less emissions, as we look at, you know, the last year of Energy Transition Strategy 2024 and come back to you during the course of the next year with our reflections on it. At the moment, I think it would be very hard for us to jump to conclusions in the middle of a very changing world, and we still believe the world will want a growing supply of affordable and secure energy, that LNG will play a very important part to it, you know, for a number of outcomes for the current difficulties. Thank you. We are going to return to the room now, May I just gently remind everyone that we do have an awful lot of questions to get through today, and I appreciate the desire for follow-up questions to the ones that are already listed. I would ask you please to keep your questions to the point and reasonably short. We move on next, as I say, to a question from the room, and this is from Sarah Bruijn, please. Hi, my name is Sarah Bruijn, and I'm from ACCR, the organization who filed the resolution last year, which has been referred to a number of times. It's pleasing to hear the company's comments that this has led to a positive engagement with shareholders across the course of the last 12 months. You know, I want to acknowledge the LNG strategic spotlight as providing some more detail into the company's thinking around the LNG strategy and would echo your comments, Sir Andrew, that it's valuable for investors to have that degree of insight. I suppose we still have some questions. I suppose the most fundamental one being the one that was previously asked, and that I think shareholders will increasingly want to hear a more fulsome response to. My particular question relates to LNG Canada 2 and to how you're thinking about that project, in particular, its relative competitive positioning. There's some independent analysis suggesting that that is not a well-positioned project on the cost curve. Interested to understand how that will be taken into account in the forthcoming FID, which I understand you're targeting for the end of this year. Okay. I'm going to ask Wael to handle the crux of your question about LNG Canada 2. Look, of course, we've enjoyed the discussions that we've had, in fact, directly with some of your colleagues. I had a very good meeting with them just last month. I think it was positive on all sides. Of course, at the end, we have to agree to differ a little bit to the interpretation, but at least the full information of how we think and how you think was put on the table. I'm not quite as in favor of special resolutions as you are. I would, for reasons I've spoken about, we don't feel this is the right way to move things in an attempt to tie the hands of board and management. We're up for these discussions without resolutions and we would prefer them not to be raised, to be honest. It would be, we think it would make for better governance. Nonetheless, the whole process has been handled in a very, decent way, and I thank you, and I thank ACCR for that. Wael, maybe something on the competitiveness of LNG Canada 2. Sarah, thank you for the question. I can't reference the specific report that you mentioned. I think it's fair to say that Canadian gas, in particular, is very advantaged at the moment, and you can see the government of Canada is mobilizing to be able to make sure that that gas is developed in a responsible way. What we are doing is, as we look at LNG Canada Phase 2, we're trying to take the learnings from phase 1. We're looking at long-term perspectives, various scenarios, as we've referenced earlier. We're looking at where it will sit on both the cost and the carbon curve. On the basis of all that, we will make a decision on our side because there are other, of course, shareholders as part of that joint venture, and form our view in the coming months towards potentially an FID towards end of the year. All of those considerations will absolutely be taken in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question, also from the room, also with ACCR, Nick Mazum, please. Thank you and good morning. My question regards LNG demand growth, and particularly with a focus on industrial demand growth, which has been a key theme of your LNG disclosures over the past three years. Within those disclosures, there's been a lack of detail around what sits underneath industrial demand, and that captures a lot of different subsectors. I'll be interested to hear some more detail from the board, from the CEO around what the subsectors where you see have confidence in LNG demand growth in the industrial sector. Yeah. Go ahead, Wael. Nick, thank you for the question. Of course, there's a lot of literature on it. What I would say is from a Shell perspective, there are multiple key sectors, whether that is fertilizer, as you see at the moment, for example, with all the challenges in the Straits of Hormuz. The Indian government, as one example, has prioritized gas and particularly LNG into fertilizer industry to be able to develop the feed stock that they need for next year. That will continue to be a key part of it. Gas into chemicals, that goes into everything that we use, that continues to be particularly advantaged. Gas into steel, gas into cement. The biggest thing, of course, is gas competing against coal, which is why we believe gas has an opportunity to be able to substitute coal in some of this. Not to mention gas into power, in particular, as a stabilizing force for renewables. Maybe the only other point I would add, Nick, is beyond the industrial sector, what has surprised us to the upside is gas into transportation. We have seen a real increase in demand in LNG into trucking in both China and India. We have seen that LNG has become the fuel of choice for the marine industry at the moment, with a significant share of ships on order being dual fuel, LNG and diesel. That is the subset of different areas we have seen gas continue to play a bigger and bigger role. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Another question coming from the room. I invite Ruth Jarman to the microphone, please. Thank you. Ruth Jarman for Christian Climate Action. The IEA net zero scenario requires no new oil and gas project to meet future demand. The report on the net zero transition also discusses, on page 14, that there is no room for new fields, and page 16, that it cannot be left to addressing demand solely to reduce emissions. I'm assuming that your continued investment in new oil and gas cannot be because you do not care. It must be because you do not understand the tragic consequences for all young people alive today, including your own children. Based on presentations from the U.K.'s top experts, the new The People's Emergency Briefing film sets out clearly the terrifying implications if we do not move to net zero with World War II style urgency. Would you be prepared to attend a private screening of this film? I would be delighted to arrange it. Is that for me? I'm happy to watch a film. It doesn't need to be private. I mean, I can attend a public screening if you want and if that were appropriate, and I'm very happy for you to liaise with my office, and we'll see what might be possible. Just on the no room for new fields. Of course, this is one scenario, as we keep saying, and many other scenarios where I think we beg to differ from IEA. Actually, what I do like to try and do at these things is just to point out a couple of things, is that oil and gas fields decline pretty quickly. Oil fields generally quicker than gas fields. Depends where they are. That decline rate is far steeper than the fall off in demand that some of those scenarios would focus. You're still going to have to replace that decline in some form. Of course, many scenarios assume, as I was hinting at, that we will need more oil and gas for longer than we think. Given your concerns, it means it's very important that we understand how we might offset that, you know, if we're going to deal with the problem in the way that I get where you're coming from. I think the other thing I would say to you is that we sort of assume that oil and gas are all the same. They're all very different. The CO2 emissions from one oil field can be a lot lower than another oil field, depending on where they are and depending how that product is refined. It can actually be helpful that you have new fields coming on site that are competitive in a carbon sense, that they actually offer lower carbon alternatives to the current production, and therefore they receive more investment going forward as we have a more managed transition. I don't think the IEA is actually very good at understanding these things. If you get a big well in the Gulf of Mexico and you put it through, and you produce a relatively light crude from that, and you refine it into particular kinds of products, you will have a lot lower carbon emissions than a small well producing a very heavy oil that's refined to different products. It is a little bit more complex than the IEA says. That said, you know, public or private, no secret, I'm more than happy to see what might be possible in watching the film and I'm sure you'll find that I share many of your concerns. Thank you very much. The next question is another written submission, so I will read it on their behalf. This is from Brian Joseph Noronha. As Shell, to its credit, operates and invests in green energy schemes, why do they run at a loss, and can they be run at a profit, potentially? Well, Mr. Noronha, we hope so. We've got GBP 20 billion invested in those sorts of things, and we're trying very hard to see how we can make them more profitable. The challenge we have at the moment is that we don't feel the pressure, if you like, however it's generated internally or through governments and so on, or our many customers as such to create the surge in demand for many of those products that would actually make them potentially more profitable and therefore, something more worthy of investment. You know, we are trying our best to turn this around, but we're also waiting to see a very stronger customer response or government response to justify some of those investments. In the meantime, yeah, I referred to half a billion dollars annually on new technology in our labs around the world, trying to find ways, in fact, where we could reduce their costs, so it wouldn't necessarily lead to perhaps an increase in price, which might have to be handled by government subsidies or not. The simple question, why do they run at a loss, I would answer is, they're not as cheap as people think, and very few customers are prepared to pay the extra price over and above what they pay for hydrocarbons. Thank you, Chair. The next question comes from the room. I invite Barbara Mulani-Wright to the microphone, please. Good morning, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, and members of the board. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Barbara Mulani-Wright. I was glad to hear that you had a background in geology, and that you were aware of the dramatic results of how everything happening on our landscape, from our rivers, mountains, and seas affect the world that we're living in, particularly in the current crisis that we face in the Strait of Hormuz. I would like to extend it a bit further, and in the previous years, I've talked about tipping points. This year, I think, based on this, the escalating science behind it, I'm going to throw another climate emergency new name into the picture, and that's AMOC. AMOC stands for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Now, I'm sure you all know about this, but you're keeping dead quiet about it because it's another of these problem things. Science has changed over the last 22 years. It's been hard to actually measure how fast our planet is heating. The problem is that we've got this great global circular heating system, and that's what's keeping this part of Europe and the U.K. nice and warm. As these warm waters move up past the coast from Florida and America, and then come over our way, they are now meeting the increasingly vast volumes of melting ice. There is clear evidence that this movement of water is slowing down. What the scientists do agree on, they may disagree on how fast or how long it's going to take to stop, but as it slows down, there's a significant danger that it will stop. They will pass a tipping point, like all tipping points, once you've passed it, you can't get back. I want to know really how much energy you're putting into thinking of future. You've given us a very, very comprehensive report this morning about how you care about the shareholders, how you're switching from one source of carbon to another, how important LNG is, and how this is going to be a very good transition, or even how you're actually packing some carbon in underground. Let me tell you, all those methods will be completely hopeless if we do tip into something in the next 50 to 100 years. There's actually evidence that we may be even hitting that tipping point sooner. We will be plunged in this part of the world into temperatures that are minus 10 to 15. We'll have sea levels rising on the east coast of America, which will be very, very uncomfortable for people living there. It'll also affect monsoon rainfall. In Northern Europe, we'll suddenly find that the crops we rely on are gonna be impossible to grow and to be able to be sure will be there season by season. We will have the biggest problem of all is that we are not preparing our infrastructure for any of these things. If your shareholders knew about this, they would be very anxious about any new oil and gas projects. It's the burning of this fossil fuel that's the problem. Of course, some of these products are needed for industrial uses, and that's well-recognized. It is the problem that the burning of it is what's heating our planet, and anything that adds to that burning right now, when we can see that the temperatures, we can see the results of extreme weather events, are really seriously affecting not us so much, but other parts of the world are having, experiencing totally devastating circumstances that change the whole way they're going to live. I would like to know what your response to that is, because it's the newest big version of the threat we face. Yeah. I am quite familiar with AMOC, and those of you who know my CV will know that I do spend part of my time at UK Research and Innovation and with the Natural Environment Research Council. I would say to help other shareholders, the predictions of whether or not, you know, AMOC or the overturning is slowed or even stopped, and the overturn, it's like a conveyor belt because of all of this cold water coming in. It's less likely, and low salinity is important as well. It's less likely to be driven down- Yeah. -and then back underneath towards Florida. There's a wide range of views on this. It's just like the conversations we've been having about scenarios of LNG demand and comparing the IEA to other forecasts and to Shell scenarios. There is a view that the risk of this is quite material, there's another view where it's saying it's not material. I think you will find the consensus at the moment is perhaps a little bit less concerned than you, because there is a wide range of views. Don't get me wrong in all of that. Of course, you know, we understand the implications of uncontrolled climate change and what that might do. That's why at Shell we are offering a range of products and a range of changes that especially if customers demand more of them, or regulations support them, we can accelerate the pace of decarbonization. We're doing our very best as Shell on our own. I mean, we've cut since 2016 our own carbon emissions by over 30%, which is 70% towards our 50% target. We've made significant reductions in our emissions of methane. We've stopped flaring early. If our customers were all providing that kind of reduction in their own emissions, what we call Scope 1 and 2, then I think we would put your mind more at rest. That requires us to find better products for them to want to buy those products and for governments to be clear that they are prepared to force the buying of those products. Look, I understand that, and I know it's very scary about. I think there was a film made a while ago where, you know, planes were flying out, falling out of the sky into in Scotland because of polar vortexes and so on, which was trying to model when the overturning stopped. Yeah, we get it. I'll just say to you, there's quite a range of views as to whether it's a risk. I'll have to come back on that, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, that's the nice answer for, the comfortable answer for all these people in this room and for all your shareholders who aren't aware of the real concerns. Actually it's now reached a 50%, 50%-52%. Would you get onto a flight or would you have your children or grandchildren get onto a 52% chance that the flight was going to crash? The last thing I'm going to say, because I know you don't want, like, long answers, is of course you want your shareholders to feel comfortable. That's why you're here. That's why they're unaware that the mob, as it was first called in your very first Shell AGM here in this country, is now outside your Shell building in Central London. They're not in here disrupting things or being carried out or shouting. The same concerns are out there, although your shareholders may not be aware of it. Although you feel that there's a way of sort of glossing over AMOC, it is one of the number of things that is seriously being supported by real science, and it isn't just a lightweight matter. Thank you. Okay. Well, I respectfully disagree. Thank you for that. I think w e should move on. Okay. Thank you v ery much. Thank you very much. It's coming. Thank you. The next question is another written submission from Richard Trevithick. He says, "Given the climate emergency and the need for the world to transition to low carbon energy supplies, could Shell demonstrate its commitment to this more strongly by investing its spare cash into physical projects such as renewables, instead of using it for share buybacks? Okay. Trying to think who should answer that. Again, there's a lot in that question. I'm just re-reading it to make sure I've got it right. I think the first thing I would say is that we are and have invested a lot in renewables. $20 billion in lower carbon activity is a non-trivial amount, if when you think about the numbers of Shell. I think it's not right to say that we should be doing a lot more than that, particularly when we've found that up to now, that those investments are not earning a competitive return for reasons we've already, I think rehearsed in this room. It's also, I mean, we use buybacks as other ways of returning money to shareholders. It's, you know, some goes as dividend, some goes buybacks, and right now the buyback way of giving money back to shareholders is attractive, because we think our shares are undervalued. We will continue to look for opportunities when the conditions exist to invest in lower carbon activities and as well to improve the returns on $ 20 billion. Thank you very much. The next question comes from the room, and with Derek Musgrove's permission, I will read this on their behalf. Could we please have the company views of investment in each of the alternative energies: solar, wind, small nuclear reactors, tidal, hydrogen, and pump storage systems? I'm not sure me giving a kind of quick answer at AGM can do justice to a question like this. What I would ask is that, you know, we clearly have to make assessments of all of these things, as we do regularly as a board, and we have a process set up actually for the second half of this year to carry out these sorts of assessments as we start to think about what after Energy Transition Strategy 2024. Maybe I could ask Mr. Musgrove if he'd hold fire, and that when we start to talk about what we think is appropriate for more value with less emissions. From next year onwards, we'll definitely touch on some of those things 'cause it's gonna be part of our scenario modeling. Thank you. The next question is also a question from the room, and this is from Judith Russenberger. Judith, please. I'm Judith Russenberger. I'm one of the group from Christian Climate Action who holds a weekly vigil outside your headquarters. I don't think you see us. We spend the hour praying for the wellbeing of the planet we share, for the people and the different ecosystems. We pray for the people passing by, for the staff going in and out, and for the security staff, and in particular, we pray for you, who have the responsibility for running the business, for the shareholders and financiers, in the belief that a better business model is possible, one that protects the environment, works for the common good, and ensures a sustainable future for generations to come. Last year, I asked how morally you felt able to pursue a business that was destroying the planet in which we depend for our survival. Your answer was along the lines that business is, in essence, amoral. Yet if business is both part of the economy and part of society, morality surely has a role to play. Simply to pursue profits with no regard for the impact your business has on the health of the planet, on the sustainability of life, on the wellbeing of generations to come, is surely not good business. What I really want to know is when you will stop extracting oil and gas and develop safer and secure renewable energy. Well, Ms. Russenberger, thank you for your question. Look, I do see your vigil. I think it's on Thursdays, is it, or Wednesdays? Wednesdays. Yeah. Okay. Do say hello then. Well, next time I will, okay? Thank you. Because I do respect the very dignified way in which you conduct your protest and the way you engage in that way. For that, many thanks. Yeah, I will endeavor to say hello. I'm not sure I'm gonna be there this Thursday, but tomorrow, I won't be there tomorrow. Oh, yes, I might. But I'll let me think about that one. I'm not gonna actually put a date in my diary. We'll arrange something. I mean, kind of the sort of slightly, for you, I think, glib answer to that is we already are a renewable energy company, but we also happen to also be a hydrocarbon company. The reason for that is that, yes, of course, there is morality behind what you're saying, but there's also morality behind making sure that people have affordable energy, people have a secure source of energy, because without that, some of the things I mentioned in my speech are not possible at all. Affordable and secure energy can be hugely emancipating or the opposite when they're not available, and we have to balance that. That's why we talk about a balanced transition. Again, the other thing we have to consider is that some aspects of the renewable energy portfolio, like solar energy and wind farms, are not actually Shell's strengths. You know, we're not primarily a power company. Historically, we've not been in a lot of the skills that leads to. The skills we do have are in trading, and we are a very large trader of renewable electrons, renewable energy credits, biofuels and so on, as our way of making sure as, if you like, the, you know, one of the world's great energy providers, that that kind of offer is available to our customer. We think that balancing affordability, security of supply, and carbon is actually, you know, I don't want to get into a fight about this. It's a reasonably moral way of doing things. I don't think I ever said business is amoral. If I did, I didn't mean to say that. Yeah. Clearly you would like us to change quicker. We get that, and from some of the others. We feel at the moment, if we did that, we would lose out on security of supply and affordability, and we would find it very difficult to give shareholders the returns that they expect from the management of their money here in Shell. We'll see. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, no, let's forget that. I think you've signed yourself up for many a film screening by the way. Thank you very much. The next question is on the phone. This is Jasper Janssen. Jasper Janssen, over to you. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Jasper Janssen, and I'm speaking on behalf of the VEB, the Dutch Investors' Association. Thanks for giving the opportunity to ask questions. I have three. My first question is on capital allocation. Shell has consistently argued that its own shares are undervalued. Jasper Janssen, sorry. Sorry to interrupt you, sir, we can't quite hear you all that clearly at the moment. My sincere apologies 'cause I think you're still talking, we can't hear it clearly enough. Perhaps we can reestablish that connection on a better line and come back to you. In the meantime, I'll move on to the next question, which comes from the room itself. This is from Christine Flood. Christine, please. Thank you. My name is Christine Flood. I'm here as a concerned shareholder. During the COVID pandemic, when demand for fossil fuels temporarily fell, your predecessor cut dividend payments by 66%. Your peers in the U.S. did not cut dividend during that period. You have raised the dividend several times. The quarterly dividend is now at GBP 0.39, remains well below pre-COVID level. My question is simply when will the dividend be back at pre-COVID levels of GBP 0.47 per share? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Flood. I'm going to ask Sinead, our CFO to answer that question. It's very much in her area. Thank you, Ms. Flood. Very much appreciate the question. For us, distributions are something we take incredibly seriously. We're making sure that we distribute money for either the investment into the business going forward, ensuring we use it to either shore up the balance sheets in order to be able to make sure that we can actually invest, as I say, further in the future, or making sure that we can distribute it to you through either dividends or by considering a capital allocation decision of buybacks. We have, of course, increased the dividend multiple times in the last few years, including just last quarter, as you're well aware. We continue to look at that in terms of where do we believe the, our, certainty in terms of the future cash flows are coming from. Each time we get more and more confident, we look at the allocation decision between that. It's exactly what we did in the first quarter, and we will continue to make those decisions quarter by quarter. We acknowledge that dividends are important to our shareholders, and we're very confident that we will continue to earn your trust to invest appropriately. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. My question was simply when, and I don't think I got a clear answer to that. No, you have not, because we will take that decision as we go quarter by quarter and as circumstances advance. Thank you very much. We will now move on to a question that is another written submission. Steven Derek Pullum writes, "Following the termination of the Rotterdam Biofuels plant, how does that affect Shell's current and future investment and production of so-called SAF, Sustainable Aviation Fuels, and what plans are there for hydrogen SAF production? That's quite a complicated operational question. Maybe, Wael, you handle that one. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the question, Mr. Pullum. I think long story short, we are already one of the largest distributors of biofuels, including, in this context, Sustainable Aviation Fuels. The market continues to be a small market in the broader relative picture. Less than 1% of overall aviation fuels are SAF. We will always look at opportunities to invest in that supply chain. At the moment, we do not see attractive opportunities to make the investment. We see the more attractive opportunity being to buy from existing capacity and distributing to our customers. We will continue to look at that and review it depending on how circumstances evolve. Thank you. Thank you. A question from the room now. John Dawson, please. Hello. Right. My name's John Dawson, and I got my shares in Shell when Shell took over BG Group. I used to work for British Gas plc, now it's Centrica National Grid, and it was. Right. I'm a small shareholder. Both Sir Andrew and Wael, you've talked a lot about the shareholder distribution. There's three straightforward questions I'm gonna ask you. Right. There's been an awful lot of talk about Shell maybe taking over BP, and it's been in the media. I wanted to know, have you got any plans or even slight plans to do that? 'Cause it all seems to be getting covered. Right. What is your policy regarding taking over BP? Is that a likelihood or what? Well, first off, Mr. Dawson, thank you for your question again, and I hope you like the fact that we moved the start back to eleven o'clock. I think that was one of the things you asked for last year. Really? Yeah. Okay. We do listen to shareholders. Look at the time when that was being rumored, we gave a very unequivocal response that we were not interested in acquiring BP. Generally, you know, a commentary about that all the time is hugely market sensitive, and you can't expect me to comment on that in this arena. It still could happen? You can- No comment. Okay. No, no comment. Oh, that's what you say if you're being interviewed by the press. Anyway, and then what I was gonna ask you was, I know it's been touched on a wee bit already. Does Shell have a policy of increasing share dividends every year? In particular, this year when they've made, like, record profits, are you gonna give us a big dividend this year? You know, if you're making, you know, largely because of it's happening with Iran and that. You've made huge profits. It's been in the television. Are you gonna give us a big dividend this year because of that? What is your policy regarding dividends? Are they gonna go up every year? Right. Well, the intention is for them to go up year on year, but maybe, Sinead, you might want to just fill in a little bit of the detail. Certainly, Mr. Dawson. Thank you for the question. From a dividend point of view, we actually have a progressive dividend policy, so we increase it 4% year on year, and that occurs. We do one-off increases from time to time, which suits in terms of where we see the future cash flows of the company going. As I answered to a colleague earlier, we actually increased it as well just previously by 5% in our first quarter. Well, that's what I was thinking, 'cause you've got an awful lot of publicity. You've made record profits this year. I was wondering, 'cause Sir Andrew and Wael, you've been talking about, shareholder distributions and so, are you gonna distribute more of your profits in the form of dividends. Because of your rate of profits this year. Can you just answer that specifically? No decision has been made at this time, and every quarter we make a decision with the board, Mr. Dawson, and that is the discussion that occurs with this board quarter-on-quarter, and it's exactly the discussion that has to occur. Right. Another one, 'cause I've spoken to Sir Andrew two or three times at the last ETMs. Mr. Dawson, my apologies. Could you make this your last question, please? It is very quick. Thank you. Right. He said, and he's even touched on it today, that he thinks the Shell share price is quite low. I heard him saying that when it was GBP 20-odd. This year it's gone up to about GBP 38, GBP 39. Do you think the Shell price will maybe work to GBP 40 and higher and maybe stay up there in the foreseeable future? Again, I, we cannot engage in that sort of speculation, but you certainly have a team sitting up here who's determined to drive the share price higher. There are many factors that we have to consider, but everything we can do within our own performance is related to getting improved return to the shareholder, both in terms of dividends, buybacks, and also the value of our shares. Right. Okay. Thank you. Right. That's- Okay. Now, my second- The chair and this board- Sorry, Wael. I'm not sure if your microphone is on. Just check that. Testing. There we go. Yes. I can tell you, Mr. Dawson, that the chair and the board are absolutely clear with management that we need to continue to do better and better every single year, and we're committed to do so. Thank you very much. We now invite Graham Smith to the microphone, please. Graham Smith, ordinary shareholder. I'm not sure if this question has actually been answered, but is there anything in the pipeline to suggest that Shell is gonna take over another company or another company is gonna take over Shell? Okay. Well, I think we have answered that, but Wael maybe can give his flavor on that as well. I think only to say, firstly, of course, we don't get into any specific details other than to say we've just recently announced the acquisition of a company, of course, ARC Resources, which is a major acquisition for us. Suffice it to say, we are very pleased with the portfolio we have. We have a very high bar to considering acquiring any companies. We think there are opportunities to create value organically in our funnel and opportunities to create value by continuing to drive the performance improvements that we see in the company, and that's why other examples, earlier BP was referenced. That's not on our radar screen. We are very much focused on doing what we know how to do best, and that's to create the best version of Shell. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Irina Woodhead, please. Question from the floor. Thank you. you. Thank you to the gentleman who's kindly sorting out the microphone for each person. Yes. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Irina Woodhead. I'm here today on behalf of a shareholder. I'm an experienced technical safety engineering and process safety management professional and formerly worked for Shell under Vice President in shipping and maritime, so good to see you again, Mr. Sawan. In 2021, I was accredited by Shell as technical authority level 2 in technical safety engineering under the Global Technical Assurance Register. I recommended to update the HSE Control Framework, and you've successfully done so. Thank you very much for that. I left Shell in 2023. I'm not here to discuss my specific legal case, but to ask about investor risk arising from potential liabilities linked to gaps in risk management and process safety controls affecting upstream production vessels and operations worldwide. Shell's annual report 2025 at page 113 states that safety improvements focuses on personal safety, process safety, and transport safety, and that Shell people are encouraged to speak up freely without repercussions. Last year, I contributed written evidence to the U.K. House of Lords Constitution Committee inquiry into the rule of law. The inquiry highlighted that public trust depends not only on courts, but also on whether internal corporate systems allow serious concerns to be raised safely and addressed fairly, especially by those whose roles are designed to manage major accident hazards. This can help mitigate risks proactively from escalating to emergencies. In that context, what evidence can Shell provide to investors that the speak up channels are generally safe to use, meaning that employees who raise health, safety, or compliance concerns of good faith do not suffer retaliation, and how is this independently verified? Finally, this particularly for Mr. Sawan. Finally, what would you personally do if a Shell whistleblower in a safety-critical position contacted you seeking intervention to prevent retaliation? Would you meet and speak with that person directly? Thank you. Yeah. I think it's all for the CEO, if I may say. Wael. Thank you, Chair. Irina, thank you very much, and thanks. Good to see you again. I think first, just to sort of step back, safety continues to be, I would argue, one of the biggest challenges in our sector, in particular capital-intensive industry like ours. If there's one thing that keeps me awake at night, it is to create the culture that allows people to go back home safely. As you know very well, that's easier said than done. We are continuing to try to put the appropriate measures in place to be able to do that. Not just technically. I think at the heart of your question is exactly the right point. It's the culture of the company that we're trying to drive forward. What are the call it elements that allow us to be able to understand what the pulse of the organization is? For the broader audience, we have something called the Shell People Survey that allows us to be able to look leader by leader at where the answer to the specific question, free to speak up, where are the strong leaders and where are the leaders that need support and help. There are other opportunities we do that. Of course, we do audits of many of our facilities. We also, of course, continue to engage on a regular basis, including, by the way, this board engages with members of staff, as do I, as do all of my leadership team. Does that mean that every single voice is heard? Our aspiration is to achieve that. Of course, that is more challenging. To your last point on whistleblower. Of course, we are always looking to be able to hear whistleblowers. It always goes through the appropriate channel. We have a very clear structure that starts with the global helpline that allows people to be able to voice those concerns. There is a group that is an independent group that then has to research and to be able to investigate every single concern that is raised, and to be able to then cast judgment on whether there is something there verifiable or not. We will not be able to, of course, meet with every single person who raises a concern, but what we absolutely will do is it will be taken to the appropriate group, what's known as our BID. They are the integrity group that review these, and to be able to reach a conclusion. Thank you for that question. Thank you very much for your answer. On the last point, where I particularly personally ask you, would you meet and speak with that person directly? I'm sorry, you heard my answer. It'll always go first to the BID to be able to cast a judgment as to whether there is something verifiable or not. As you can imagine, there's multiple entries into the global helpline, and therefore, we have to respect the process and allow the justice to take its course through that independent entity that we have. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. The last one, I have invitation for all of you. We are currently in the process of preparing the meetings in the House of Lords for the WhistleblowersUK organization, which starts 16th of June. The number of seats are limited, but I will make sure that Mr. Sawan can attend. Thank you, Irina. You're welcome to come on behalf of Baroness Kramer. Thank you very much, Irina. Thank you. It's good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. We are now going to hopefully reconnect with Jasper Janssen, who is on the line with a question. Jasper Janssen, hopefully you can hear us, and over to you. Yeah. Hello, everybody. One more try. Again, thanks for the opportunity to ask some questions. I have three. My first question is on capital allocation. Shell has consistently argued that its own shares are undervalued. Yet the ARC transaction is funded 75% with newly issued shares. Can the board explain how buying back and issuing Shell shares can both be value accretive for existing shareholders at the same time? That's my first question. My second question is on the quality of what the Shell is actually acquiring. The ARC transaction adds significant resources on paper, but the uplift in proved reserves is only modest. How should shareholders assess the quality, not just the quantity of those acquired resources? What proportion of probable and contingent resources does Shell realistically expect to convert to proved reserves over the next five to 10 years? My final question is on LNG Canada Phase 2, which is also central to the ARC investment case, but not expected to be operational before the early 2030s. What are the main remaining hurdles to a final investment decision? By when does the board expect to decide? Can Shell quantify how returns from ARC differ with and without phase 2? Those were my questions. Thank you. Well, thank you. I think to a large extent, your last question has been dealt with elsewhere, but I'll ask Wael to kick off on questions one and two and maybe refer to Sinead if necessary. Okay. Thank you very much, Jasper Janssen. I'll try to touch on these points at a high level. I think firstly, we continue to believe that our ability over the last few years to be able to outperform our peer group has meant that our paper has become more attractive, yet we still see it as being materially undervalued. What you have seen us do most recently is indeed use our paper for the 75% of the acquisition of ARC Resources. You've also seen us bring down our buybacks by half a billion dollars in the last quarter. This is not about is it this or that. We still see the undervaluation in the shares, but we also see those shares as having been attractive vis-à-vis the acquisition of ARC Resources, having seen a strong run in our share price compared to ARC, and that allowed us the space and the opportunity to create what we believe will be long-term shareholder value. We continue, by the way, to be absolutely committed to our buybacks. What we have also said is, as we build the strength of the company, we will look once again to take the opportunity at the right point in the cycle to continue to lean into the buybacks. To give you a sense, we've bought back over $62 billion of shares just in the last four years, and we have delivered returns of over 20% to our shareholders in that period. On the ARC Resource base, you will see the specific capture of those resources in proven, probable, and contingent. Suffice it to say, it is a very attractive resource base, both on the liquid side, which is a core part of this transaction, as well as the gas side. What we have already provided is it is a material close to 6 billion barrels of what's known as 2C or contingent resource. Rest assured, we see this as very attractive resources. The only other point I'd make on LNG Canada phase 2, beyond what I've already made, is that the ARC acquisition was not contingent on LNG Canada phase 2. It is a standalone acquisition that we stand by and believe we can create value out of. If the board sees fit to support an LNG Canada phase 2 decision, that will of course add a bit more value, but that is not at the heart of our investment thesis. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Wael. Thank you very much. We are now going to go to an in-room question, and this is from Caroline Dennett, please. Yeah. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the board and shareholders in the room and online as well. My name is Caroline Dennett. I was a operational safety culture consultant with Shell, working with the Global Solutions for over 10 years and then very publicly resigned my contract four years ago, calling Shell out for their double talk on climate change and disregard for planetary safety. I'm here today, as a representing a shareholder, but also working closely with communities in the Niger Delta who are seeking restoration of their land and water and air from pollution caused by Shell's operations over the last 70 years. My question actually is about gas flaring performance. In your 2025 annual report, you stated you had achieved your target to end routine flaring in your global upstream operations by 2025, including in SPDC, which people have probably heard is the upstream onshore oil production in the Niger Delta. For example, on page 85 of the annual report, it says, "We ceased routine flaring in January 2025, achieving our target to eliminate routine flaring from our upstream operated assets by 2025." Additionally, on page 89, you state specifically that with SPDC ceasing routine flaring in January 2025, we have reached our target to eliminate that routine flaring. You also inform in the annual report that this target is used to determine executive directors' remuneration, which we understand to mean it was one basis for target-related executive bonuses being awarded. You know, understandably, you congratulate yourselves for achieving this target five years ahead of the World Bank's initiative on gas flaring reduction. However, accounts from residents living close to SPDC operations state that routine flaring was witnessed during January and February 2025, when Shell still owned its shares in SPDC. My question is, what data sources have you or the World Bank published that verifies your claim that routine flaring ended globally at SPDC and also from your SNEPCo offshore oil production in Nigeria, which Shell still operates and owns? Because without that verification, one might reasonably question, have you really achieved your target as you've claimed? Okay, well, that's a very clear and specific question. Wael. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the question. Look, to the heart of your question, on all of this, we have to be able to go through our accounting and reporting requirements, and we of course do that. What happens in our flaring space is we have already invested significantly to be able to capture a lot of the flue gases. What we have also done in a place like Nigeria is stopped activity in certain areas to be able to meet our flaring commitments. Now, of course, as you know, SPDC is a joint venture that has eventually been sold to Renaissance. It's now rebranded as Renaissance Energy. What you can continue to do is see in all of our accounts, the verification processes that we go through on all of our reports, whether it's financial or for that matter, operational or from an environmental perspective as well. We will continue to invest in high-grading our ability to be able to be as responsible as we can be in the context that we are operating in. You will see that, I'm sure through your discussions with our investor relations team, we can provide you any more of the details that you would like to be able to get the assurance that you are looking for as a shareholder. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Can you therefore categorically say that in January and February 2025, you did not flare gas from your operations in SPDC? I think it's important to recognize what your question was. There are always, as you know very well, Ms. Dennett, there are emergency flaring requirements that take place. No, I said routine flaring. No, you said flaring. Well, I mean my question is about routine flaring. Routine flaring, yes, we can confirm that we were not doing routine flaring, which is why we reported that. Where we have flared, it has been because of emergency requirements, which, as you know, then become a safety issue for the facility, and we have to protect the facility and the people around it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We move on now to Simon Taylor in the room, please. Good afternoon. My name is Simon Taylor. I'm from an organization called Hawk Moth. I was also a complainant to the Milan prosecutors about the corrupt deal for the OPL 245 oil block in Nigeria. I want to ask about corruption risks. As referenced in page 413 in the annual report, I paraphrase, it seems not to be a problem. At least that's the reporting would sort of suggest that. My questions go like this: How did Shell divest SPDC in March 2025? We know the Nigerian regulator blocked the deal, but the president then overruled the regulator. Why, given nothing had changed? Shell has given no credible explanation for this, nor any details about the conditions under which this was agreed. We have some detail about, you know, the events that happened, but nothing really of substance. Shell hasn't also given any explanation in my view that's credible about the recent concluding new deal for the OPL 245 oil block. Given there has been two decades of corruption concerns associated with this block, including those involving Shell, which landed Shell on trial in Milan, will Shell now publish full details about these new arrangements? Did you make a new payment for the asset? If so, how much, and where was it paid? Will you now release all documents, contracts, and their underlying fiscal terms? I just wanna clarify why I'm asking that because with the original deal it was completely not in the national interest of the State of Nigeria. I think it's really important for people in Nigeria to understand, as the president was insisting, this is of positive interest to the state. Well, is it? We need to know, I think is a fair question. How do you explain the failure of regulators and enforcement efforts in Nigeria to get to the stage where Shell legacy pollution that it was legally responsible for was cleaned up? My question is, could corruption in any way be a factor? I'm asking that because I want to know how you would know it wasn't. In resisting cleaning up, why is Shell's litigation posture to deliberately one of time-wasting during the ongoing litigation? I was in court yesterday, and in my view, there's a word to describe, Shell's counsel in court yesterday, which was really all about delay, more and more delay. I spoke to someone afterwards who said to me, someone from Nigeria, who said, "We've been trying to get, you know, a resolution to this case for 10 years, and the counsel is sitting there creating more delays," which in my view just add to the process and just time it out. Given in the end, this is my last point, given your bonus at the bonus level was part linked to the offloading of SPDC, will any of you who got bonuses associated with that act be helping to pay for the restitution of the massive legacy pollution that is now, seemingly a permanent problem in the Niger Delta? If not, I want to know how you think Renaissance can do that, given it has no money, and you had to lend it the money in order for it to purchase the asset off you. Thank you. Okay. There's an awful lot of detail in your question. I don't think we can answer all of that, and particularly, comments on the ongoing, discussions in the court that you were at yesterday. I would just say, look, we understand the concern that you have, and let me, kind of put it in two buckets. There's concern for the pollution and its and its ability to be remediated by Renaissance, and then a just general concern about what steps we've taken to avoid corruption. I'm sure Wael may want to add to my answer, but I think on the pollution side, you know, the reality is that much of the pollution, as we understand it, has been created by criminal acts, by an attempts to steal oil, refine it illegally, going wrong, and an awful lot of pollution results from that. When we ran this operation as SPC, or through SPDC, which, as you say, dates back a year or so ago, we almost in all cases paid for the cleanup of pollution, even when it was for things created by illegal acts because we shared your concern for the environment. We don't for one moment believe that we are liable for that. It was really, you know, just given our stance, if you like, back then, we thought it was appropriate for to do that. We believe that Renaissance are able to continue that track record as we go forward. The cost of that cleanup was, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars that has already been spent to remediate pollution that was on the whole created by illegal acts that we wish hadn't happened. I think there's an on the corruption side of things, I think, Wael, maybe that's something that you've got a bit more intimate and knowledge of Nigeria, and you can add to that. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the question. I think just to sort of elevate, everything we try to do, we try to comply by the values of this company, and we hold ourselves to a very, very high ethical and compliance bar. We have regular reviews, including, by the way, we used to have regular reviews both in Nigeria and outside of Nigeria. To the specific points that you raised, as you are very well aware, the court tribunal in Milan found no evidence of corruption. In fact, they have found that the prosecutor was involved in unethical behavior. As you will well know. I think- And so- Sorry to interrupt. Sorry, did you want a response to the q- Yeah, please do. I have a response. Sorry. Therefore, what we have been able to prove is that there was no corruption involved in that deal. There has been, of course, discussions by the lead operator, Eni, with the government to be able to l ook at what that deal means because the Nigerian government has been very clear they want to be able to develop that resource. We are in discussions with Eni to understand where that goes, so I won't comment beyond that. I think more generally, on your question around how do we assure ourselves, back to what we talked about earlier, we have various, global helplines. We have percent come from sabotage, as the chair has said. We will then, wherever we can get access safely, we will then, or SPDC will then make sure that they clean that. Now, that's a topic of the past. We no longer, of course, have an equity interest in that joint venture that is now known as Renaissance. At Shell, we have done what we can to be able to continue to hold ourselves to that high bar in Nigeria and beyond Nigeria. If I may just very briefly, in the context of Bodo, I would strongly challenge your claim to have cleaned up. I think it's gonna be interesting to see how the judgment that we're expecting at any point will conclude matters on that. It's very clear that whatever you spent cleaning up Bodo didn't clean up Bodo. The reality is there for people to see on the ground. It's an absolute catastrophe, and there are estimates of $600 million plus would be the cost to clean up just there, and that's after Shell let one leak run for 72 days and a second one a month later run for 75 days without stopping. Okay, that's in the past, but I don't understand how Renaissance, with no money, can clean up that. I just don't get it. The math doesn't work for me. Just on Milan, you're probably aware that the working group on bribery at the OECD concluded that the judgment of that court of first instance was so disturbing they concluded Italy has now fallen out of compliance with the OECD convention. Since then, we've been investigating political efforts, potential political efforts at this stage, I would say, of interference into the conduct of the case stretching right from the investigation stage all the way through, and we've identified 60 red flags. I'm sure some are explainable. I don't think 60 of are explainable. Since then, I think it's worth reflecting on the prosecutors whose case goes before the Supreme Court on the 18th of June. In my view, having looked very closely at what happened there, they've been accused and convicted of a crime that isn't a crime in Italy. You have to understand what's actually happened, and I won't have time to explain that here. I have zero faith that that wasn't a put up job and they were nobbled. I actually don't have faith that that judgment was a credible one. I sat through two years of evidence, and it was damning. I don't think there would have been an acquittal, if I may, in any other OECD court. That's my view, but it's based on two years of evidence. I think you should relook at that, and then you will understand why I have major concerns about the complete lack of transparency around the deal for OPL 245, and I question when you're going to produce all the underlying documents, as I would expect of a company sitting on the EITI board, which by the way, I was an outgoing board member at the last board, so I know my EITI stuff well. Post a certain period, you're supposed to disclose all these documents. We've seen nothing. I think before I accept that the deal for OPL 245 is credible, we need to see the paperwork. Will you commit to putting the paperwork in the public domain? Thank you. Let me maybe just once more say we clearly agree to disagree on the legal process in Italy- Okay. -and respect, of course, your views on that. On Renaissance, let me assure you that as part of the execution of the divestment of our share of SPDC to Renaissance, we took real care to make sure that they are operationally and financially able to be able to deal with all the commitments they have, operationally, environmentally and financially. you can see that they are continuing to follow through on those commitments. again, I suspect we agree to disagree that they will be able to continue to do what they have. On the final point around OPL 245, I think all the documentation has more than been well trailed, of course, through the court case, and I think we have been able to provide everything that the judges have asked. At this stage, we see it as a case closed, and we continue to look at how we are able to then look at opportunities to support Nigeria, in particular in the deep water space, where we think we can continue to add value to that country and what it's trying to do. Thank you for your points. You haven't responded to my question about the documents. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Taylor, I'm sorry, but we do need to move on because we have a number of other questions. I think we do have to move on. I think just for the benefit of all shareholders, I think it's important to recognize that oil has been vital to Nigeria. It's a very significant portion of its exports and GDP for decades. Of course, Shell have been part of that and continue to be part of that. We see a number of quite attractive investments still to come in Nigeria. However, the consequences of criminal activity in the Niger Delta are serious. Some of the incidents and so on that you have described were born out of criminality as a major source of pollution. Nonetheless, in the past, SPDC contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the cleanup work, even when the vast majority of it was a result of criminal activity and I think it's important that shareholders have that context, but I think we should move on. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is also from the room, and this is coming from Liesbeth van Tongeren, please. Thank you. My name is Liesbeth van Tongeren. I'm a small shareholder from the Netherlands, and I have a question that leads on a little bit from what Mr. Mackenzie and Mr. Sawan have said earlier, that Shell wants to become an integrated energy company. That, yes, by the time government and customers want to pay for sustainable energy, also Shell wants to advance in that area. My question is to Ms. Gorman, specifically around the accounting standards. Now, when you have proven reserves of oil and gas, there are accredited ways of how that is put on the books. I know there's been numerous efforts also started by Shell long time ago. I spoke to Shell people in the Netherlands 10 years ago about this idea, and I enthusiastically looked through your annual report to see if there's any advancement on how you put in your books the proven reserves of geothermal energy, wind or solar. I know the supervisory board of the IFRS is working on this. There's been amendments proposed from 2024 to also put that in the accounting. In the annual report, I haven't seen anything about it. Maybe I misread. In your public statements, I don't see this. If what both Mackenzie and Sawan have said is true, you also need to fix the accounting side of it. I'd like to know, did I miss a lot of activity? Are you doing it? If you haven't yet, what are you gonna do to achieve this? Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your question. Obviously, a technical accounting question and directed towards Sinead. No. Thank you, Ms. van Tongeren. Appropriately so. It's an excellent question. As you say, this has been a topic that has been probably on the cards for certainly in my time, seven, eight years that I've been discussing it as well. What we find is that we get consultations from the various accounting bodies to have exactly that discussion, because per your point, how do you actually talk about the reserves that a company has, whether it's fossil or otherwise? Of course, the difference being the view that one is depleting and one is non-depleting, and that's how the accounting standards have so far classified those. We continue in these discussions. We continue to engage, and we will continue to do so as it goes through. We had expected to see something coming through actually in 2025. It did not materialize. We understand both the U.S. side and IFRS are both continuing to take this forward, and we believe a consultation will occur later this year. We, of course, in our annual report will account according to the standards that we are given, and that's what we're audited against as well. We expect that to come in the future. Yes. I understand, of course, you're audited on the standards now, but if you don't change them, you will not get a valuation on proven reserves for clean energy. Let me put my reading glasses on. I'm of that age. The International Accounting Standards Board has already been working that on that with amendments in 2024. From what I've been told, deafening silence from Shell. If what both Sawan and Mackenzie have said, we want to be an integrated energy company, why are you not actively pursuing this? What I hear from you is, "Okay, we're leaning back." Once it becomes the accounting standard, of course, we'll adhere to it. Why are you not actively pursuing that the accounting standards reflect your company's policies? I didn't say we were not actively. What I'm saying is that when we receive the different standards and the consultations that come forward to us, we engage in the process. We engage on multiple changes to standards year on year, and this is one of many that will occur. We look forward to continuing to do that with the various standard boards of whom they do reach out to us, given the size of the company on multiple different topics, and we'll continue to do so because I think it's an excellent topic. As a shareholder- I'm sorry. Can I see any concrete evidence in any of your written communications that you're actually doing this? Understood. I think listening to Sinead, there are lots of things that we do that are not documented to shareholders. Maybe there's more things we might do, but I think we should close that one now, please. Thank you very much. My apologies. Just a reminder to everyone that we do still have a significant number of questions to get through. If you could resist the need for follow-up questions, I would be very, very grateful. The next question is another question from the room. This is from Peter Morrison, please. Peter. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. As you can hear, my voice isn't very operational. Hannah, do you have a copy of my- I do. Would you prefer for me to read it for you? Yes, please. Thank you very much. Of course I will. Thank you. I speak as a former Shell upstream professional who was proud to work for this company, and as a representative of about 800 U.K.-based Shell pensioners and deferred members who remain concerned by Shell's decision in both 2022 and 2023 to withhold inflation protection above the scheme's 7% guaranteed level. This is despite the pension trust fund being financially very strong and requiring no additional contribution from Shell. The issue is well known, and there is permanent impact for members. To be clear, it's not a debate about whether Shell met the minimum legal requirement or whether other companies provided less. The issue is whether Shell honored the pension expectations and overall employment bargain that it itself promoted to its workforce. We have repeatedly sought explanations through Shell, the Shell Trustee, and engagement with our representatives in the Shell Pensioners Association. Unfortunately, the responses have generally remained dismissive, evasive, misleading, and at times untrue. This includes repeated references to there being a cap, despite there being no cap on increases at all, but rather a guaranteed minimum level above which discretionary increases are explicitly provided for within the scheme. I will move to the question now to sum up the context in one line, this is not a request for special treatment. It is a question of governance, transparency, and whether Shell honors the employment promises on which for decades employees based their financial lives. Does Shell accept that for decades these employees were led to believe that their pensions would retain full inflation protection? If not, then when and how were employees clearly informed that Shell might refuse support for discretionary protection during periods of exceptional inflation? Secondly, since Shell did not request discretionary increases during the exceptional inflation of 2022 and 2023, under what circumstances would Shell now consider requesting such increases in the future? Or is the discretionary mechanism now effectively redundant? Thirdly, given that only around 25% of the fund's surplus would have been sufficient to support fuller inflation protection without cost to Shell, what was the governance and moral justification for prioritizing balance sheet de-risking and corporate financial benefit over protecting pensioners and deferred members from permanent real terms losses? If these questions cannot be properly answered here today, would Shell please agree to a follow-up meeting involving Ms. Gorman, the Trustee Chair, and the Chair of Shell in U.K.? Okay. As always, there's a lot in these questions. Thank you for raising them. I think it's important that everybody understands a bit of the background. You say that's not the issue, but our pensions are generally by any comparison, market leading. The aim is to match RPI. You say there isn't a cap, but I think it has to request additional funds if in fact RPI is above in most cases 7% or in some cases 5%. The only time that an increase above RPI was awarded over 30 years was when the cap was actually at a lower level of 5%. You're right. You and many other pensioners in 2022, 2023, when RPI was above 7%, did ask us for a discretionary increase, we decided against for many factors. You know, the health of the funds, how we saw the overall cost of living and the future cost on, on future generations of pensions on such an increase. I imagine in asking for the clarity going forward, you know, you're asking us to somehow suspend judgment on the health of the funds or what the real cost of living is and the implications of an increase. We have to retain a bit of that discretion in order that the fund is well managed. I don't know, Sinead, if there's anything more you want to say. No Chair. Thank you. I just hope that gives your fellow shareholders more context, even if we can't agree here today. I don't know about your request for subsequent meetings. Let's I feel there's been a lot of meetings, and there's probably not much to be achieved from an issue where we probably will never completely see eye to eye. Thank you, Sir Andrew. All I would say is that these are the questions to which we're referred. We understand those are the questions that are being asked by pensioners, but I think the kind of guarantees you're asking for would, I think, significantly tie the hands of running this fund for the benefit of all pensioners, including future pensioners who remain members of the schemes. Thank you. I'm sorry. I think you've mischaracterized the situation. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you, Mr. Morrison. I hope I did justice to your questions as well. We move on now to another question coming from the room. This is from Arjan Keizer, please. Thank you very much. My name is Arjan Keizer, based in the Netherlands. Good to see you, Wael and Sinead again. My question is to Boer, who has been silent so far. I want to ask a question as a shareholder, as an alumnus, as a co-filer of Resolution 23, as a former leader of the internal employee network, Future Energy Leaders, where I represented the voice of 5,000 employees, and finally, Life After Oil, a new community. I want to be proud of Shell now and in the future. The board writes on page 158 of the annual report that our people are our greatest assets. Sir Andrew Mackenzie just called them brilliant a couple of times. Yet, Shell People Survey results have drastically declined in the past three years, and for many employees, growth opportunities have disappeared. This conflicts with the core value, respect for people. The existing engagement channels have structural limitations. The Shell People Survey captures no open answers. HR reporting misses what is never asked, and works councils tend to underrepresent higher job grades. This means that the boards is systematically hearing a filtered version of the employee reality. My question to you as non-executive director is: How do you ensure that employee voices are not just heard, but visible in strategy and execution? What are you going to do to reverse the negative employee satisfaction and fix this structurally? Before I hand over to Dick to answer that question, I think it's important for me just to set some few principles as to how we as a board interact with shareholders, and then Dick can talk about his experience. Of course, we can't get to everybody, the board does go on regular visits to Shell locations, and next month we will be going to Aberdeen and Norway. We've had many visits leading up to that while I've been chair, at that time, we make it an absolute priority that we meet with local staff at quite low levels. We normally have dinners or lunches and in groups where there are people, in my experience are very frank with us, we compare as a board. From time to time, a practice we started in COVID, but we've continued post-COVID, we actually arrange for us to meet virtually with groups of employees around the world. That's something we've actually just done very recently, where each director, including myself, is given a country, and you meet a cross-section of people from that country. The only other thing is, yes, we do spend actually quite formally at least an hour, perhaps a bit more per year in a December board meeting, reviewing many of these issues within the context of the Shell People Survey. We have it as one of our top 10 risks that we as the board monitor, and we expect to have that kind of conversation once a year at the board. But we also draw on then is many things, a lot more than just the Shell People Survey, which is a one-off survey. It has been getting better recently, and we know we've been through quite of a turbulent period, but there are spot surveys that are done, you know, which are often done with greater frequency, and we hear reports from them, from Rachel Salway, who's our chief HR officer. You know, we also have, many of us have friends and contacts in Shell, and we report what they are telling us, so it's shared collectively as a board. I know I've jumped in, but as somebody who oversees and champions that process, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Dick, you, I'm sure you can add to it. Maybe you can talk about your most recent interaction. I don't know which country you went to virtually. virtually we were last week together with Cyrus Taraporevala, by the way, in Brazil. We had our interviews, and we had our discussions with teams in the world. As Andrew said, this is something which is high on the list, certainly for a former CEO of a large company with a lot of people working for me. People surveys matter to me, but also the culture of a company. I know that a company which is in transformation and transition like Shell, the engagement surveys will reflect at a certain moment the uncertainty of people. That's what is my previous company, where we had even 300,000 people working for the company. You see that coming back. When in business, there is a transformation going, you see the engagement survey goes down. The questions we ask as a board, what are the fundamental criteria we need to get to improvements back. What does it mean for engagement? I must say, looking also how the HR department with Rachel and certainly also with the leadership of Wael over the last couple of years as a leader, have been engaging back into the society, into your companies. Also seeing that personally, when you visit the markets, last year, Australia, the year before, by the way, the Netherlands, and talking to people, I know there is a lot of pride in Shell. Of course, transition means uncertainty, and that's what you see often back in the engagement surveys. I truly believe that the company is really built on the right fundamentals. I see that back in the way people engage with us and the openness we have when we discuss with them. There's nothing. There are no sacred cows. We asked the questions last week, said, "Come up with what is on your mind." Then people will raise their voice and have their opinion. That's our role as a board, certainly. It's, as Andrew said, also, it's yearly on the agenda for the full board, where we talk about culture, talk about the engagement surveys, and that we also matter most for us as people, as our own staff. I know you're very engaged with Shell, and you were very engaged with Shell, and that you have been also amplifying that in your social media. I hope at the end of the day, even now you left, you're still a proud former employee of our company. Thank you. I'm still proud, but it's difficult on some of the activities, I think especially related to the AMOC answer and question in climate change. I think there is more responsibility to be taken. I think compliments on all the engagement the board does. I think in the annual report, there's a lot of detail. I think the employee satisfaction remains low, and there is improvement to be done. Many people who care about the transition, like myself, have left. I think what would be interesting is to look into the data, how much churn is related to the new strategy, and measure that accurately. Also measure people with severance packages, what they have as a reason to accept the severance package. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next few speakers rather are on the line. Can I first invite Mitama George, if you can hear us, you have the floor, please, for your questions. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Mitama Kohe George. I am from Otuabagi community, host of the first oil well in Nigeria. Aging oil facilities, including wells and pipelines, continue to pose an environmental threat to communities in the Niger Delta. Just days ago, the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority published an alert on the severe humanitarian threat posed by thousands of abandoned oil wells, including the ones in my community. Under Petroleum Industry Act, operators are legally required to fully fund a decommissioning and abandonment fund. Shell capitalized and claimed the multi-billion dollar liability with regard to safely plug and decommission their every single well of its own. Leaving well therefore offloading SPDC to Renaissance Energy or Shell use this space to avoid environmental cleanup obligations, leaving Niger Delta communities to bear the toxic cost. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mitama. Over to you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. George. There's a very specific question in there about how we handle plugged and abandoned oil wells, which I'm going to ask Wael to answer. I think in all other respects, most of this question has already been answered. And particularly the last part of your question. Absolutely, the transfer of SPDC to Renaissance Energy was not done to avoid environmental cleanup obligations. We have not left in the past, we did not leave, and nor do we expect Renaissance Energy to leave Niger Delta communities to bear the toxic costs. As I said, most of these pollutions have been caused by criminal acts. We're not liable for them, and when we were operating this through SPDC, we contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to those costs. We expect a similar practice from Renaissance, so we would like to obviously see an end of illegal activity. Maybe just a very specific question then on a specific comment on plugged and abandoned wells. Yeah. Very short answer is indeed there is a requirement in the Petroleum Industry Act to hold funds for decommissioning and abandonment of wells, and that is what, of course, SPDC at the time, the joint venture, did. It is as per the legal requirement, and that is what Renaissance has inherited as part of taking over that obligation. Thank you. The next caller on the line is Princewill Chukwuru. Princewill, over to you. Princewill Chukwuru, can you hear us? If you can, you have the floor for your question, please. Doesn't sound good, I'm going to read his question on his behalf, if that's okay. My question is about the historical liabilities of Shell Petroleum Development Companies, SPDCs, pollution impacts on underground water contamination in my community, the Niger Delta. Specifically from 2016 before the sale of SPDC to Renaissance Energy, my family has written to Shell and documented pollution at the Samuel Uchekwu Chukwuru family's compound in Ibaa, which to date has not been resolved. Shell stated remediation will commence in March 2021 to be completed in two years, being 2023 for the pollution affecting the Chukwuru's family compound, which is independent water, which independent water tests show persistent underground water contamination. Will Shell commit to a fresh joint investigation visit with NOSDRA, the community and independent labs, and publish the results? What specific remediation standard was applied in 2021? Can Shell provide the post-remediation water quality data for their compound? Well, a lot of similarities again on these questions that at a high level I think, I have addressed. I'm really sorry to hear about some of the difficult circumstances that you and your family have faced in Nigeria. You know, in some ways I wish all of us could do more about, could have done more about that in the past when Shell was the operator. Again, I repeat everything I've said previously. We do help clean up way beyond what we think is our liability. Well, we did, I should say. That obligation is now very much with Renaissance. I don't know if there's anything, 'cause it's a detailed question about NOSDRA and what happened in 2021. Is there anything you can add to that? No. We don't really have specific answers to that question here. Okay, next question. The next question is from the room, and this is from Catherine Fish, please. Good afternoon. My name is Catherine Fish. I am a member of Christian Climate Action. Thank you very much, Chair, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, and CEO, Wael. Thank you for elucidating the current trajectory of objectives of Shell and the vision that you have. I was very interested, Sir Andrew, that you referred to Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography. I have read the book, I would suggest that Tim Marshall quickly opens the discourse from physical geography to the interface between physical geography and geopolitics. I think, the previous two questioners are real examples of real prisoners of geopolitics. It was really good to hear from them and I am wondering where you can explain how that sits with your citing that Shell is playing a part in decarbonizing. I think that given the feelings and the views that have been shared in a lot of the questions today, many shareholders would like you to be taking a lead in not just playing a part, but taking a lead because of the urgency of the situation. We have just heard firsthand from people at the front of the impact of another consideration, and that's that with every exploration, every development of oil, there are associated risks and threats of accidents, of incidents, of absolute disasters. It seems to me that the question about remediation could not be answered openly, and the question about will you engage fully and meaningfully with the communities that are most impacted hasn't yet been answered. According to Amnesty International, the residents that we've just heard from some of the communities in the Niger Delta, had their livelihoods destroyed and homes damaged by hundreds of oil spills. Criminal activity or not, the oil wells were there because of Shell's exploration and development. The pollution caused widespread devastation to the local environment, killing fish and plant life and leaving thousands of people without access to clean drinking water. I'd like to echo the previous questioner and ask Shell to undertake a meaningful consultation that comes to resolution, that is fair resolution for these Prisoners of Geography with the affected communities and provide a full remediation plan and then report back. Would you be able to report back openly with details of all completed and ongoing cleanups, as well as details of adequate compensation for the severe and sustained harm that these communities have endured as a result of Shell's operations in the Niger Delta? When would Shell agree to provide that? Look, it's regrettable, the conditions that you describe and others have described and what this means to people's lives now. I mean, I feel truly sorry for that. I don't think it is right that you can expect Shell in the past when we operated that area, and we no longer do, to regard itself as fully liable for pollution caused by criminal acts. I mean, that is a general issue for the country, and we're very happy to work with the government. I think the idea that we would independently do all of that when it was not as a result, a direct result of our own operations, which we manage to the high standard. I'm sorry, I don't think we can provide you. Thank you for that response. Could I say that there is always going to be a risk of this sort of incident happening, therefore, that's another consideration for the urgency of decarbonizing and not continuing with developing oil. Well, we're now into decarbonization. I'm dealing with the pollution side of things. The pollution is a risk. Of course, there's always a risk of this happening. I mean, part of the reason that Shell exists is we take a lot of, and my speech hinted at that, we take a lot of quite dangerous circumstances and dangerous compounds and turn them into things that are safe and that improve people's lives, and we make them safe, and we dramatically improve the environmental impact, say, if you went back many decades. It is not correct to ask us to accept liability for an operation which we're no longer the operator of because it's in the past when the vast majority of those activities have been caused by criminal attempts to, you know, steal oil from our operations which have gone wrong. Yet despite that, we are continuing to invest in the country, you know, continuing to, and while we were there, before we handed over to Renaissance, we spent many hundreds of millions of dollars in cleaning up what we could. But to make that fully comprehensive and to make us fully liable, we don't accept. Nor do we accept that for Renaissance. They're doing their best, but they cannot be liable for the entirely for the actions of criminal gangs seeking to steal petroleum. I think we've said a lot on that. We should move to the next question. Thank you very much. The next question is a telephone question, please. Hopefully, we have Dr. Emem Okon on the line, please. Dr. Emem Okon, are you there? If you are and you can hear us, please do ask your questions to the board. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. My name is Dr. Emem Okon. I am Nigerian. My question is about decommissioning of abandoned oil wells, pollution legacy of Shell, and its negative impact on the public health of local communities in the Niger Delta. A report by Kebetkache Women Development & Resource Centre on the impact of oil extraction in Otuabagi community in Bayelsa State showed hydrocarbon levels 8,000 times above the World Health Organization permissible limit in blood samples of 80 women. These women are experiencing respiratory diseases, higher cancer incidents, reduced fertility, and eyesight impairment. The abandoned oil wells, among them Oil Well Two and Oil Well Four in the Oloibiri oil field, are still put into the farmland and still polluting the environment. These wells have been abandoned since the 1970s and are yet to be decommissioned. The Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission found similar unhealthy hydrocarbon levels in the blood of 1,600 people. When will the abandoned oil wells in Otuabagi be decommissioned? What actions are Shell and Renaissance Energy planning to take to remediate the public health impact on the Niger Delta community affected by decades of oil pollution and mitigate related litigation risk? What plans does Shell have to meaningfully engage with civil society? I also want to say that the 2025 annual report of Shell was more than 400 pages long, but there was nothing written about abandoned and improperly decommissioned oil wells resulting from 70 years of Shell operations in the Niger Delta. That is my question. Thank you. Well, thank you for your question, Ms. Okon. Look, I can see how much it means to you. I'm, you know, I've expressed some of my own concerns about that. Please express them back to the people you represent. I don't think I have much to add to my previous answers. I'm not able to comment on those details. I just continue to remind you that the incidents that you describe are complex. Nonetheless, in the past, SPDC contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the cleanup work. I know that Renaissance is continuing to do similar things today. Thank you. We move on now to another written question. This has been submitted by Isabelle Vasey, and it's on behalf of Elo Imiete Inig. My question is presented on behalf of the paramount ruler of Aminigboko community in Abua Odual, LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria. As the paramount ruler of Aminigboko community, I sent numerous letters to Shell dated as far back as September 2021, well before the sale of Shell's shares of SPDC. After four years of trying and failing to engage Shell in a meaningful discussion, the final statement made by the OECD in January 2025 regarding our complaint concluded that the NCP considers it problematic that Shell, a multinational enterprise operating in a high-risk sector, is not following up on any recommendation regarding responsible business conduct. I ask, after decades of operating in our community, why do our people still live without basic amenities such as water, electricity, good roads, and healthcare? Before selling your SPDC operations in March 2025, what lasting developmental projects did you make provision for to truly improve the lives of our people? Further, a series of questions submitted by Isabelle Vasey, which I'll read now, in connection, I think. Did Shell report the benzene exposure accident that occurred on the Shell Dolphin in May 2021 to the Occupational Safety and Health Authority and government authorities of Trinidad and Tobago? My apologies. Would you prefer to just go back to the previous question, or shall I keep going? Okay, I'll keep going. No, you can keep going. Yeah, finish them off, and then we'll deal with them as one. Okay, fine. The second question in this bulk is, does Shell comply with the OSH laws of the countries it does business and operations with? Thirdly, does Shell comply to and support its HSE policies and procedures? Obviously, this starts in Nigeria, but this is a broader question and one that is not so much related to pollution, but the contribution that Shell makes to the overall development of Nigeria. Look, I'm well aware, and Wael, if you want to add comments to that SPDC had and Shell still has in the areas of Nigeria where we operate, a community engagement set of communication plans, community investments. It probably can't cover everything, because we're not that large. We're not the whole government of Nigeria. We do endeavor to make doing business with Shell a positive experience for development. I don't know if there's anything to add to that. No, only to confirm indeed there are multiple social performance investments that we have made and we continue to make. Nigeria receives actually the largest portion of social performance investment by Shell of any of the countries. I know Renaissance also have their own programs that are ongoing at the moment. As you say, Chair, it cannot cover everyone. I think the final question is, of course, Shell will comply with the OSH laws of the countries it does business with and operations with, and probably goes well beyond compliance. Certainly, I can say as somebody who sits in the board and evaluates, you know, all these reports that Shell is pushing to the highest standards, because its HSE policies and procedures are often greater than many of the OSHA laws of the countries it does business and operations with. We evaluate that. Of course, we're not perfect. Mistakes are made. On the whole, they're learned from so that we can comply. I am not entirely aware, and I suspect my colleagues aren't either of an incident on Shell Dolphin in May 2021. Therefore, I'm not sure there's much we can comment on here. No. Okay. Moving on, we have a question from the floor here, and this is coming from Ilan Hensler, please. Thank you. Yes, hello. Thank you. Maybe first just to comment on your continued explanation that a lot of the oil spills in the Niger Delta were because of criminal activity. Just a suggestion, if you were to focus a bit more on giving back to those communities as opposed to maximizing shareholder profits, maybe criminality wouldn't be so high. Maybe actually social welfare would be higher in those countries. Just a suggestion. I'm here standing to represent communities in Philippines, where last November 2025, a super typhoon hit Luzon, the biggest island, causing chaos and devastation with more than 1 million people driven away from their homes because of flooding. Research shows that the likelihood of a disaster like this super typhoon has roughly doubled due to fossil fuel driven climate change, largely caused by oil and gas companies like you. Shell is among the top ten polluters of all fossil fuel companies and one of the richest in the world, with many opportunities to change this. You know this, so why are you continuing to inflict this suffering on the people of the Philippines and all over the world? Why aren't you paying for repairing the harm you're causing to them? You speak of many solutions. You mention, for example, you're waiting for the market to be ready in order to change this. We're here in London. Many councils are broke. There's no money in order to change this. There's no money in order to set up a grid. Through decades of privatization and neoliberal capitalism, this has only gotten worse. The cards are in your hands. You have more power than most governments, and yet you are saying you're waiting for them to act, for them to set up the grid. Many have lost hope, even in this room. Many are just looking at the profits and are hoping to get more shareholder revenue. There are some of us who still believe, who are young enough to think of a future where actually we can fight off against this fossil future. The scale of devastation and forced migration begins here in this room. It's in your hands. The decision you make here will affect the future of civilization. The enormity of the moment cannot be understated. You are here making jokes and laughing, but this is the future of humanity that you, as one of the biggest companies and one of the main causes of climate change, are deciding on. Be aware of this. You mentioned gas. One term that is used a lot by my generation, Gen Z, is gaslighting. Maybe you've heard of this as well. That is what you're doing here. You're speaking of LNG, and you say that this is a low carbon alternative. You don't mention methane, which is 80 times more potent than CO2. You don't mention it once, pretending like this is a low carbon solution, but methane is being emitted into the atmosphere, which will be much more devastating than CO2. You know this, but you don't mention it. You mention carbon capture like this is a solution just to continue emitting and to then drive CO2 into the ground. You are actively using this stored CO2 to release more fossil fuels from the ground. This is gaslighting. Finally, you mention hydrogen, but you fail to mention that the hydrogen you are involved in is not green. You are not involved in green hydrogen. It is therefore not sustainable. You are making more than GBP 10 million in revenue per personal salary per year, right? How about giving a bit of this money away to the communities that you are affecting or to the security that are standing here, to all of the employees who are happy if they can make a few thousand GBP in savings to go on holiday while you are flying around in your private jets? This is a question of class. You are sitting here comfortably with millions of GBP in your bank account pretending like you care about the people who are being affected by your projects. Well, I appreciate your input, you know, and your point of view. There are a couple of things that I don't think are right. We do mention methane. I mean, Wael personally has taken a strong leadership in trying to cut methane emissions right across the industry, not in Shell. Our performance in methane emissions is one of the best in the industry. In the last 10 years, we've cut our methane emissions by nearly 80%. We do talk about that, and we talk about this as one of the prerequisites for improving LNG. You say we don't make green hydrogen. Well, Wael talked about Holland Hydrogen I. That is making hydrogen with an electrolyzer that is mainly sourcing its electricity from wind power in the North Sea, and it's the biggest investment in hydrogen that is happening in Europe. We, we do put Shell's money where our mouth is. I don't think that what you say is correct. Look, it's a question of balance. We understand and we get the concerns of climate change, which is why we're trying to advocate for decarbonization. We're trying to do it in a way that balances the security of supply of energy and its affordability. In a world which right now gets more than 80% of it, of its energy from fossil fuels, it cannot move away from them overnight. What we're doing in decarbonizing and in trying to provide a cheaper supply of these things, that is very important for development as well. You know, I'm sure we'll always see things differently. I appreciate your comments. I think on Odette, that's a more complicated one. I understand, you know, and what I have to say is in no way meant to diminish the real experiences of those affected by Typhoon Odette in 2021. What I can say is that, you know, that trying to link one company and the actions of one company to one individual typhoon is just not legally or scientifically credible. It's a false link and one that we would dispute, whilst at the same time doing everything we're doing, providing for low, sorry, high, more value and less emissions by decarbonizing while we secure affordable energy and a secure energy, which is actually requiring an awful lot of work right now from Shell staff simply to repair the loss of supply that has arisen because of what's happened in the Arabian Gulf. In the same way that we did, you know, way beyond the things to keep many places supplied with gas during, well, the early stages of the war in Ukraine. I think in those areas, our purpose, if you like, in the world is quite a bit more powerful and positive than you would see it. We will have to agree to differ. Of course, it's positive. You have positive figures from these conflicts. As everyone's paying more for living costs, you are the ones profiting. Not everyone is losing. You are here making money from this. You are making money from wars. You are making money from these conflicts and then inflicting fossil fuel energy to those countries as an alternative to get out of their lacking energy. Mr. Hensler, I'm sorry. I think the board has answered your question, and I'm sorry. We do still have other parties to listen to. No, obviously not. I will. Okay. We won't continue a multiple debate because other, there's still a lot of questions having to come through. The accusations of profiteering are not correct. They've been fully investigated in the Netherlands and here in the U.K. The cost of petrol at the pump is not as a result of people trying to profit from these activities. The reality is that the profound shortage of oil products in the world right now has meant that they are traded globally at a higher price, and that higher price is paid by everybody along the way. The individuals who are transferring energy to the customer are not profiteering. You are profiting from this. We are- Yes, you are. Mr. Hensler, I'm sorry. We're gonna have to move on to some further questions, please. Thank you very much for your intervention. Why lie about this, right? We are all seeing the war every day on our phones, right? We are all seeing what's happening, we're wondering who's making money from this. They are sitting in front of, and you know this, right? Maybe some of you are just happy that you get a bit more money at the end of the year from your shares. These are lives of thousands, of millions of people, if not billions, w ho are having to leave their home, who are having to leave their farms. They have done nothing wrong. They are completely innocent- Mr. Hensler- -to any of this. -I'll ask you just one more time, please. If you could just sit down. We do have other questions to get to. We understand high energy prices affect businesses and people. That's why Shell staff work so hard to try and heal the supply loss in a way that can counteract some of these features. I'll just say to you in ending, I mean, of course, we're at a shareholders' meeting. Profits enables business to invest, supporting energy security, jobs, and economic value. That's our role. Anyway, let's leave it there. You are not there for the good of the people. You are here to make profits, and you know that. Thank you very much for your intervention. With a salary of over GBP 10 million a year. I'm afraid we'll have to turn the microphone off, Mr. Hensler. That is salary that is going into your pockets every year, right? We appreciate your intervention, but it's time to sit down now, please, so we can get to some other questions from other shareholders. Okay. Thank you very much. Can we move to the next question? If ecocide was a crime, you would be sitting on the defendant table of the ICJ, and you know this. I believe the next question is coming from Brian Lovell. Can we have the next question? You know this. Brian Lovell, please. Blood is on your hands, and you know this. Brian Lovell, please, to go to the microphone. Perhaps the microphone over there. Thank you very much. Your predecessors have been actively diverting from climate science that has known what is coming for the last 40 years, and you are actively diverting from it. You're pretending this doesn't exist, and still today making it not your top priority, but saying we are looking at it. You are directly responsible for the deaths of millions of people, and what's coming is going to be even worse as the right wing is going all over Europe, right? Your shareholders are giving money to Reform UK. Your shareholders, billionaires, are giving money to right-wing parties because they are denying climate science, and they are saying the blame is on the people who are coming in this country. The blame is on the migrants. I'm sorry. You've made your point. We're happy to have discussions, but let's leave some time for some other people, please. There is no room for this. Please, could you respect the other mem- When you are directly responsible for countless deaths, and you have no way of justifying it. Could you leave the microphone and let us get on with the meeting? We've given you quite a bit of time. Not until you answer what you are gonna do to the affected communities and how you will hold yourself responsible for the deaths of millions of people. That is only gonna get worse. There's so much- I have not had an answer to that question. Please, I think we've had a debate. I would prefer to give other people a chance. You have not made yourself accountable at all. You're saying it's not fair. Please. You hold Shell accountable- I'm sorry. -for countless deaths. If you're not able to allow us to conduct this meeting, I'll have to, and by sitting down and giving a chance another person to speak, I'll have to ask security to remove you. Thank you. We move on to Brian Lovell, please, to the microphone. Brian Lovell, who I believe is in the room as well. My name is Brian Lovell. In February 2021, in Burma, a military coup stopped Aung San Suu Kyi and her democratically within a non-democratic country. The ordinary people voted for her. In December 2025, the military government, under very restricted terms, won what they claim was an election. They've put on civilian dress and are now using a major propaganda and public relations exercise to claim how right they are. They're also receiving great aid from Russia and China for bombing. My question concerns the Shell affiliates, ASEAN affiliates, and linkages worldwide and, what was the word you used, portfolio of interests and exploration and energy. How much are they using that to support and pay into the energy, oil, and gas company in Burma or Myanmar, as they term themselves now. Are you involved in any way through your affiliates and- That's quite a detailed question about what how Shell conducts its trading business, but maybe Sinead can ask can attempt to answer it. Certainly. Mr. Lovell, we have no licenses in Myanmar any longer. All our exploration blocks have been relinquished and handed back and have been accepted as such. We remain having a relationship with a distributor in the country related to lubricants. That is it. With affiliates in ASEAN- I don't have- -and worldwide affiliates in your portfolio, you're not paying in any way monies into the military-controlled energy thing? Sir, all I can say is what I'm aware of is that we no longer have any assets or relationships into the country apart from one distributor. That's all that I'm aware of. I would add that in January this year, the parents of the U.K. chargé d'affaires were not allowed to visit their son in Myanmar. Thank you. Okay. Well, I'm very sorry to hear that. Yeah, well, good. Clearly you've had the answer that we're not involved. You must have linkages in some way. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Thank you. The next question is also from the room. Joseph Chan, please. Yes. Good afternoon, Chairman and fellow shareholders. My question is about the cost of North Sea exploration. First of all, i s it true that existing hydrocarbon reserves in the North Sea area under U.K. control are almost depleted, and that because this region has been fully explored, that the possibility of new findings in the area are diminished? As a corollary, and also, as a partial answer to where all the money from oil sales or gas sales comes from, is it true that the only deterrence to further exploration in the North Sea area is the additive tax that's charged by the existing U.K. government, making it economically unviable for further exploration in the area? Okay. I'm probably not gonna comment on the second part of your question. Okay. That's a very complex issue. Maybe on the first one. I think it's not right that there's no possibility of new findings, but the North Sea is a mature basin, and Shell of course has been a major player in it over the last 50 years. Therefore, inevitably a mature basin's production does tend to decline. It's quite hard to reverse that. It doesn't mean that there is no possibility of new findings. In fact, in near-well activity, Shell, well now through our joint venture with Equinor, Adura, continues to explore. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chan. The next question is a written submission. Again, this is coming from Kathy Mulvey, representing the Union of Concerned Scientists. A new report from the London School of Economics finds that 80% of investors perceive climate litigation as a material financial risk. In this context, let's consider Shell's new webpage purporting to explain climate lawsuits. Here, Shell seeks to discredit attribution science, continuing its decades-long campaign to deceive the public about climate science. Contrary to Shell's claims, attribution science is an established scientific discipline backed by decades of research. It has been recognized by the United Nations' IPCC as a critical tool for understanding the impacts of climate change. Why does the corporation believe that doubling down on disinformation and disparaging scientific evidence will reassure shareholders that Shell can avoid liability for its deception and its fair share of the massive damages to people and the planet resulting from fossil fuel-driven climate change? I mean, it's similar to the debate we had, a couple of questions back. I mean, we don't have a unique knowledge about climate change. It's been a part of public discussion and scientific research for decades. We do feel that it is very hard, scientifically or legally, to claim that an individual company is in some way related to an individual weather event, which is what we spoke about earlier. Statistics. You cannot relate the two. I'm sorry, I'm answering somebody else's question. You had more than your fair share. If you continue, I will have to ask you to be removed. I'm happy for you to stay and listen, and I'd prefer you did that, please. I don't think I've got much to add to the debate we had previously. The next question comes from Emma Louise McFarlane, who has again submitted a question online, on the online platform. Can Shell give a clear answer on its AI future usage and its impact on your staff? Maybe Wael? Yeah. We're in the early innings of AI and the realities around AI. We have a number of teams. We have 200 plus data scientists that are embracing the exciting opportunities, but we're also grappling with some of the challenges that come with AI. It is undoubtedly in my mind, the case is going to be that AI is going to significantly enhance productivity and efficiency of our operations. We see it in multiple areas at the moment, whether it is assets and the way we run our assets or the way we look at the subsurface. Yet to be determined the impact it is going to have on staff levels. I will not venture to guess at this point in time where that trajectory is, but I would say it is one of the big things we are grappling with as a company, both from a defensive perspective, given the cyber threats that come, but also the opportunities, the great opportunities that emerge in multiple areas, such as we've talked about carbon capture and sequestration, the ability to develop new solvents that could potentially significantly enhance our ability to be able to capture CO2. Those are all some of the elements that we are looking at with AI. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from the room. This is from Karel Priperi, please. Thank you. My question is for the independent director, Bram Schot, so I will give him the courtesy of looking him in the eye. Hello, Bram. You bring years of experience in the automotive industry to the board of Shell. The German car industry has been notoriously late in responding to disruptive innovations and EV market dynamics. This has left several major car manufacturers playing catch-up or facing decline. How specifically have you applied lessons from the car industry in your board tenure at Shell to prevent the company from driving blindsided into a wall of energy disruption and declining demand? We'll try and find Bram for you, but I'm not sure how easy it is. I think it's probably better I answer this question, because I can tell you that Bram frequently briefs the board on the lessons from the car industry almost at every meeting, and talk to us not just in terms of the impact of the change on them, but how the change would impact Shell and indeed the oil industry generally. I mean, that's one of the many reasons that we have Bram on the board, and he contributes to all those discussions in the way that you would want him to. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. The next question is coming from Steven King, please. Sir Andrew, the Board, fellow shareholders, thank you very much. How is Shell contributing to recycling of plastics? There are advanced technology, all the labs you spoke about, considering the amount of plastic components perhaps you produce as a company. Sorry, I feel really stupid asking the question. I asked exactly the same question last year, you talked about the problems of sorting out plastics and stuff. It's an ongoing kind of conversation, I guess. Yeah. I think the problem about that, yeah, I can't quite recall my answer last time. No worries. Bram may want to add to that. We're a member of a number of industry associations, looking at the technology of plastic recycling. The sorting one is when you try and separate it out to an individual plastic that you can then remelt without going down the chemical route of basically breaking the plastic down and using it as a feedstock. That's something that we are pioneering in some of our operations, particularly at Moerdijk in the Netherlands. You know, we have research in that area, we actually in one case are doing things that are on an industrial scale, very much on the chemical recycling. That's great to know. We're members of various associations with the plastics industries to try and continue to improve that. That's good to know. Thank you very much for that, sir. Okay. Thank you. Peter Torry, please. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, fellow shareholders, ladies and gentlemen. My God, is my hair really that white? I'm Peter Torry from Hendon. My apologies for mispronouncing your name. No, accept it. Even the BBC called me Peter Torry once. I am a refugee, escapee from British Gas. I'm an individual shareholder, I'm representing myself. I have no political affiliations. A simple question, statement if you like. Being of mature years, I remember certain things, being a war baby as well. When it was the Suez Crisis in 1956, as most of us remember, and the Suez Canal was closed, I distinctly remember that a well-known other oil company, I think it was under Eastern States Standard Oil, better known as Esso, they put their petrol up GBP 0.06, GBP 0.025 a gallon, while the Suez Canal was closed, and they had to go, their tankers had to go around the south of South Africa, the long way around. When it was all resolved, I thought I'm gonna write to them and say, "Not are you, but you are gonna return the GBP 0.06." Never heard a reply. Is there any way, Mr. Chairman, you can tell us honestly, are Shell doing something similar? I know it's difficult with the situation in the Hormuz Straits now. You've put up your price a little bit to compensate the delay in the ships and having to service the ships and feed the crew and the fuel for the ships. I appreciate we're gonna get a profit out of this. It's purely out of our hands, this. Petrol, what is it now? $100 a gallon, which is quite a lot, isn't it? I've got a little Ford Ka. I hardly use the thing, but it doesn't really affect me personally. I can make great use of my freedom pass. Thank you very much. What I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, please be honest with us. If you have put up your price because of circumstances, will you be taking that price off again when all this is resolved? I was born in the thick of the Suez Crisis, but I was too young then to remember it. I know essentially what Exxon did. Look, we do understand high energy prices and how they affect people and, and businesses. There's no doubt that the current disruption is causing exceptional constraints on supply and raising the price of oil, gas, and fuels. That's just simply the market workings of supply and demand. I would put it to you, as I put to some of the earlier discussions, that Shell's teams, from our rigs to our production facilities, and indeed through our whole distribution networks run by our trading organization, are working tirelessly to meet the energy needs of our customers and to reduce the supply-demand imbalance in some very difficult circumstances. When it comes to the price of petrol at the pump, as I mentioned earlier, there have been reviews of what's going on then, there have been no evidence found of any increase in margins by retailers, including Shell, as a result of that. I mean, just so you know that at the pump, when you buy petrol about a third is down to the price of oil, about a half is what the government takes, and then the remaining sixth is what the garage that you buy your petrol from is actually able to use to cover their costs. That they have not attempted to take any more is what the conclusions have been of the market reviews. I think, you know, this crisis has not all been nice for Shell. I think as you've heard early on in Wael's speech, some of our operations have been directly impacted by the Middle East conflict and in Qatar, our gas to liquids operation, which provides a lot of oils for lubricants, was damaged after the missile attack. Some of the supplies that we counted on for some of our LNG customers have also been affected by war damage. But ultimately, what you're seeing here is not down to the decision of any individual company. It's the working of a supply-demand with the very sudden removal of a very critical supply that has caused the changes and not down to a decision by an individual company one way or the other. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're welcome. I'm sure I speak on behalf of everybody here. You let this meeting go on very long. I went to the opposition's AGM recently, BP. After one hour, it was cut short. Nobody had a chance to ask their questions. You've been more than generous, even though you've had certain people here who could have conducted themselves better. Thank you. I'm sure I speak on behalf of everybody, and express your appreciation, please. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Well, thank you for that. You know, as I've said on with a number of examples, we do support a very active and engaged dialogue with our shareholders, and so we will. We're almost at the end, I think. There's two or three more questions we still have to take. It's a very important part we feel of shareholder democracy, and we want to make sure all opinions are heard. Can we go to the next question? Yes. Peter Bonk, another Peter, has messaged in, sent his question in, rather. It says, "Does Shell have a strategy to minimize the risks of the increasing global geopolitical instability, and does this include a vision to actively contribute to world peace? I think we do have a strategy. I kind of tried to outline that in my talk as well. P erhaps one of the strengths I might say of your company is that we've managed a lot of geopolitical stability over our long history. We do that, as we've described, by having diversified portfolios and we continue to want to make sure that we can satisfy our customers from many sources. If we lose one source, we can support it with another source. Of course, what we own as operations is part of that, but what we actually lock in through many of our trading contracts allow us to do that. We are confident that we will find our way through almost anything the world can throw at us from geopolitical stability. I'm not sure that that includes a vision to contribute to world peace. If I was stretching the point a bit, I think by in part guaranteeing the ability of the world to get the energy it needs to function, we certainly maybe reduce the risks of the opposite of world peace, because having a decent supply of energy is a great way of helping to calm things down. That's why the work that we're doing, that Shell are doing at the moment is so important to make sure that we can contain some of the impact of the current instability and limit its impact on people's lives. We will now take the last question, and this is coming from John Collingwood, please. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Firstly, may I say thank you on my for me, but no doubt everybody else here for making the meeting 11:00 rather than 10:00, because I believe it's enabled a lot more people to attend the AGM, and also to the hotel staff and security staff for their help in running the event efficiently. My question is regarding resolution number 22, political donations. I notice it's a question which is on the ballot paper every year. I really want to know why Shell want to get involved in politics, and possibly give us an example where they've made a donation which has benefited the company and one where it hasn't. I think there's a slight misunderstanding of the need for the resolution. Shell does not make political donations, but it is free not to make them. I think as was set out in the notice of meeting, you know, by the way, we've no intention of changing that practice. It just so happens that in, with the U.K. Companies Act 2006, there are certain definitions of political donations, I can't think of one off the top of my head, that might be caught and seen to be a political donation where we have no freedom to maneuver and not to make that donation. Therefore, it's very few and far between, but to avoid an inadvertent breach of the U.K. Companies Act 2006, we just have to have that authority in place just to protect us and to protect you as shareholders. Thank you. We're not about to start making political donations or choosing political favorites. That concludes the questions. Back to you, Chair. Okay. Thanks, Hannah. We have now got to the end and covered all the questions registered. I have a question that hasn't been raised. Sorry, your name is? Ada Louise Nolan. What's your question about? Well, it was two parts, but one of them- You need to go to the microphone. Sorry. There were two parts to my- Well, there were two different questions, actually. I'll come to the second one first, which was there is, if you go on YouTube, there is an eight-minute documentary called Oil on Their Hands. It was filmed in just in February 2020. It is not about Shell. I'm quite clear about that. It is about the pollution left by another Dutch company, oil company. It was later shown to the Dutch government. As a result of that, this year, the community involved were able to take their case to the, I think it's the OECD court in Holland. Now, nobody's holding their breaths over whether they get anything, but I would ask you all to actually Oil on Their Hands, and I put in Peru, and it comes up. It is horrific, absolutely horrific what the oil pollution in an area can do to the water, to the health, to the community. My question was actually, are there any incidents that Shell are involved in the world of that sort of nature? W hich I hope there aren't, but sort of, it's about going forward. The reason I know about it is that my daughter filmed that. I'm in the strange position of having had last year selling a house in Aberdeen because my brother was a mud engineer on the rigs in the North Sea and around the world. I've seen all aspects of it, but that documentary is horrific. Okay. Well, I mean, I haven't seen it, so I mean, I'm afraid I can't comment. Well, no, I'm not asking you to comment on the issue is that a Dutch oil company, not Shell, left the area very, very badly damaged and polluted, and my question is, are Shell involved in anything similar anywhere around the world? Well, I hesitate to say that. Maybe I'd better just check with the operational heads. I'll come back to it. No, we will. Look, can you hear me? Yeah. We hold ourselves to a very high standard on these operational spills. We report on them, by the way, in our reports every single year, so you get full visibility on that. You'll have heard some of the previous discussions where particularly in Nigeria, there has been a challenge historically where we were driven particularly by sabotage. We continue to hold that very, very high bar, and by the way, that's a requirement by law by most of the governments, if not all the governments in the countries in which we operate. Can anyone say that oil spills do not happen? No. We try every single effort to be able to make sure that we avoid it or minimize it when it does happen. Right. Thank you. The other half of my question- Just before we go. Sorry. I missed. What was the issue with your brother? Oh, no. My brother is long since dead, but last year I sold his house in Aberdeen. Oh, I see. Okay. He was a mud engineer on the rigs. Okay. So I've seen- Okay -different aspects of. Well, some of us on this- Yes. -on this platform have also worked on rigs. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Indeed. Yes. My other question was actually related to the share register, Equiniti. I've just found them totally inefficient. I wrote to them two years ago asking how I could consolidate different bits of shareholdings. They decided in their infinite wisdom to cancel all my bank mandates. My question is, why do you use such an incompetent share register? Well, I'm sorry to hear that. We don't want this to have happened. This was with Equiniti? Yes. I'm gonna go and see them. Well- -after, um- Yeah, well- Nobble them 'cause it's still an ongoing issue for me. Yeah. Well, I hope you get it satisfied. Obviously if not, you know, please write to us. We'll see what we can do. Okay. Thank you. Thank Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Go well, everybody. Okay. Right, one more time. No more questions? Okay. You're responsible for countless deaths all over the world. No. Oil is the main reason for conflict over the world. Look, if you stop talking now, you can stay, but if not, I'll have to ask you to be removed. Are you happy to? Oil is the main reason for conflict over the world. It does not bring peace, and you know that. Okay. You are responsible for countless deaths. You know that too. You know that too. Shell kills millions of people around the world, and you're sitting there, some smiling. Okay. Third time. Any more questions? Okay. That brings us to the conclusion of the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll leave you to your voting. A breakdown of the proxy results we received ahead of this meeting will shortly be seen on the screens behind me. For those of you who are voting on the Lumi platform, please be reassured that votes cast before the voting cutoff time will still be counted. I think we've had a very wide-ranging set of debates this morning moving into the afternoon. I believe when you see the votes that are up there now, we're broadly on the right path. We know there's much more to do, and we'll continue to update you on your progress. On behalf of the board, I do want to thank you for your support and thank everybody for coming, and I would formally declare now the 2026 annual general meeting closed. Okay. I did want to just given a little bit of this disruption, I did want to make a few remarks which, just let me have b efore we close. Have you got the script there? That went wrong. Look, I've got a note of them now. I mean, I just wanted to thank you for your patience through today's disruption. I mean I believe it is right that we should hear as many views as possible. An AGM must be a two-way forum, as I've said, Shell shareholders are heard. I mean, climate change is an emotive issue. I genuinely can see both sides, tackling it does require real changes from government, industry, and customers and companies, including Shell. We've entered into a flavor of that debate today. With that, I'd like to close the meeting, we'll probably some of us will come out and talk to you as we disperse, look forward to seeing you next year. Thank you.