The company - which was the last FTSE 100 employer to have a final salary scheme open to new joiners - is proposing to develop a UK defined contribution pension plan for new hires to "reflect market trends in the UK".
Timing is proposed to be the first quarter of 2013. The company said on its pensions website: "The plan will be designed to ensure that the reward package in the UK for new hires remains strongly competitive."
Current active members, deferred members and pensioners of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund (SCPF) and the Shell Overseas Contributory Pension Fund (SOCPF) will not be impacted by this decision. Active members of the SCPF and SOCPF will continue to accrue pension benefits within those plans on the same basis as now. The Company has confirmed that its commitment to funding the SCPF and SOCPF remains unchanged.
Further details of the proposed pension plan for new hires will be made available as the design is progressed.
IN 2010 Pension Capital Strategies in association with JP Morgan Cazeenove reported Royal Dutch Shell gave £2.7 billion to its pension scheme - the largest amount of any FTSE 100 company.
But Unite, the country's biggest union, has condemned Shell for "turning the screw" on workers.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: "This is a disgraceful act, nothing less than greed on the part of one of the world's richest and most powerful corporations.
Shell has no need whatsoever to close this scheme and in the process deny its employees the safe retirement they were promised they could save for.
"Shame on Shell - for where it leads, other corporates will follow."
