“We’ve seen of course through 2022 the fragility of the energy system,” Sawan said. “To see prices start to skyrocket, that’s not healthy for anyone, particularly consumers.”

But at the same time, CO2 emissions rose to a record last year, meaning the world will need to move even faster if it wants to achieve its climate targets and avoid the worst impacts of global warming. To do that would require a steep cut in demand for oil and eventually gas as well.

Under Sawan’s predecessor, Ben van Beurden, Shell had a target to reduce oil production by 1% to 2% per year, a pace that it’s more than achieved. Much of those declines are attributed to a reconfiguring of Shell’s production portfolio to shed lower-margin assets. That approach will continue under Sawan, who’s committed to boosting value for shareholders.

“We focus on value over volume,” Sawan said. “So it’s not how many barrels we’re producing, but the margin that we extract from the barrels we produce.”

Eoin Treacy's view

The war in Ukraine has allowed major oil companies to voice the painfully obvious truth that oil use is going nowhere. Such is the strength of the anti-carbon lobby groups, that any claim by major oil and gas producers that they are providing a useful life-affirming product were drowned out. The energy emergency in Europe highlighted in stark terms the cost of doing without oil and gas.