Wael Sawan: Thank you very much. Thanks for that, Paul. And let me take both. So on Europe, you’re right. We don’t have a huge amount of Upstream left in Europe. We still have, of course, positions in the U.K. We still have positions in Norway and Italy. But the majority, in particular, when you think deepwater is in the U.S. and in Brazil. And then we have strong positions, of course, in Kazakhstan, in Oman, in Brunei, Malaysia and so on. So you’re right to point out that it has shrunk over time. And we still have, indeed, in particular, when you think about our Energy and Chemicals Parks, we have the Energy and Chemicals Parks in the Netherlands as well as the one in Germany. It is fair to say that there’s a couple of considerations around Europe.
We see Europe much more going forward as an energy transition play. We see a lot more in terms of the incentives that play into Europe. We see our ability to be able to leverage our German and Dutch position in a way as well as our marketing positions in Europe in aviation, in commercial road transport, in passenger transport. Those lend themselves very well to be able to play in the energy transition, and it is in line with where Europe wants to go. So I see a strong part of our focus, and you see it. You see it with the investments we’re making, for example, with offshore wind in the Netherlands, green hydrogen in the Netherlands looking at opportunities to continue to decarbonize customers in Germany, in Italy and so on and so forth. So there is more of that while we continue to be committed to our oil and gas businesses in other parts of the world as well as whatever we still have here.
But definitely, I think the disproportionate share of capital that’s going into Europe is an energy transition theme. The important thing I keep trying to remind the government in Europe is that, that capital that really needs to be — or I need to be comfortable that we see investment stability in the climate in Europe. And I have to say 2022 did not reinforce that confidence. We have seen ad hoc interventions in windfall taxes, in price caps, in some areas, nationalization and the like. Of course, these are extreme conditions. I fully understand that. But any time you start to move from trying to manage risk to trying to manage price creates all sorts of concerns in a company like ours that’s investing for the long term. So I would just leave that out there as well.
I think on low carbon, let me be, I think, categorical in this. We will drive for strong returns in any business we go into. We cannot justify going for a low return. Our shareholders deserve to see us going after strong returns. If we cannot achieve the double-digit returns in a business, we need to question very hard whether we should continue in that business. Absolutely, we want to continue to go for lower and lower and lower carbon, but it has to be profitable. And so I recognize there’s a different risk profile. Let’s be clear, Upstream hasn’t always been in the 20% returns. On a commodity — or on a commodity basis, you find that the risk typically plays between the 10% to 15%. We need to be able to see those sorts of returns on an integrated value chain basis in the renewables as well, and that’s what we’re focused on.
And we have great examples of that. We’ll share a bit more of that in Capital Markets Day through getting in at the right time, through diluting, through creating more value all the way down the value chain, but it is important to say we will continue to focus on value and returns.
Operator: The next question is from Amy Wong at Credit Suisse.
