News

Shell boss warns of a Brexit fallout

THE boss of Royal Dutch Shell, Britain’s biggest oil company, has come out
strongly in favour of Britain staying in Europe, warning that Brexit risks
big disruption to trade and would diminish the UK’s world standing.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ben van Beurden said Shell would be
“impaired” if Britain were to quit the European Union. “We are a company
with a strong heritage in the UK and on the Continent. There would be a real
break between the two, which would affect freedom of movement of staff,
trade — we would be impacted.”

Van Beurden said his biggest worry was the different paths Britain and Europe
would take. “Everyone can talk about what the Brexit event would look like,
but nobody knows what would happen. There will be a path of divergence, and
that will have all sorts of inefficiencies. That’s not good for companies
like ours