Ryan complicit in the great oil and gas giveaway

ENERGY Minister Eamon Ryan’s figures quoted in your article headlined ‘Corrib gas field worth €9.5bn’ (October 30) raise some serious questions.

According to Mr Ryan, Shell will have spent €7bn buying, €3bn developing and 1.7bn in tax for a field of gas that is worth €9.5bn. If these figures are correct, Shell will suffer a net loss of €2.1bn over the lifetime of the project.

As far as I know, Shell hasn’t applied for charitable status just yet. On the contrary, it has been posting record profits on the back of its exploits, and the people of Ireland are next in line.