The rising cost of fuel is pushing inflation up all the time – yet in the face of a coming national emergency, it has been revealed that Shell and BP have made record profits over the last six months of $8 billion and $6.75 billion respectively.

In Shell’s case, this works out to a profit – not turnover mind – of $1.8 million an hour – was up eight per cent on the same time last year.

Shell has claimed that it uses its profits to invest in renewable energy and clean technology. However, its financial statements show that it spends $500m a year on alternative energy resources – about five days’ profit.

A large source of these profits have been boosted by Shell’s Canadian oil sands business which increased their earnings by 74% over the last three months.

The high price of oil now makes this controversial form of oil extraction financially viable for the big oil companies (not just Shell), but it is more energy and carbon intensive than traditional extraction.

Shell declined to say how much it had earned from British motorists at its network of petrol service stations but it insisted it was “one of the cheapest” suppliers.

A doubling of the oil price to $120 per barrel across the quarter drove those profits while Shell admitted that its overall oil and gas production fell slightly to 3.1m barrels of oil equivalent per day in the second quarter 2008, from 3.1m in the same quarter last year.