Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England.[5] Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange. A core component of Big Oil, Shell is the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue (after ExxonMobil), and among the world's largest companies out of any industry.[6] Measured by both its own emissions, and the emissions of all the fossil fuels it sells, Shell was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 1988–2015.
Shell was formed in April 1907 through the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company of the Netherlands and The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company of the United Kingdom. The combined company rapidly became the leading competitor of the American Standard Oil and by 1920 Shell was the largest producer of oil in the world.[7] Shell first entered the chemicals industry in 1929. Shell was one of the "Seven Sisters" which dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. In 1964, Shell was a partner in the world's first commercial sea transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG).[8] In 1970, Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, which it subsequently sold in 1994 and now forms part of BHP. In recent decades gas has become an increasingly important part of Shell's business[9] and Shell acquired BG Group in 2016.[9]
Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration, production, refining, transport, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation, and trading. Shell has operations in over 99 countries,[10] produces around 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has around 44,000 service stations worldwide.[11][12] As of 31 December 2019, Shell had total proved reserves of 11.1 billion barrels (1.76×109 m3) of oil equivalent.[13] Shell USA, its principal subsidiary in the United States, is one of its largest businesses.[14] Shell holds 44%[15] of Raízen, a publicly-listed joint venture with Cosan, which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company.[16] In addition to the main Shell brand, the company also owns the Jiffy Lube, Pennzoil and Quaker State brands.
Shell is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index and had a market capitalisation of US$199 billion on 15 September 2022, the largest of any company listed on the LSE and the 44th-largest of any company in the world.[17] By 2021 revenues, Shell is the second-largest investor-owned oil company in the world (after ExxonMobil), the largest company headquartered in the United Kingdom, the second-largest company headquartered in Europe (after Volkswagen), and the 15th largest company in the world.[18] Until its unification in 2005 as Royal Dutch Shell plc, the firm operated as a dual-listed company, whereby the British and Dutch companies maintained their legal existence and separate listings but operated as a single-unit partnership. From 2005 to 2022, the company had its headquarters in The Hague, its registered office in London and had two types of shares (A and B). In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc.[5][19]
The Royal Dutch Shell Group was created in April 1907 through the amalgamation of two rival companies: the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (Dutch: Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij) of the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited of the United Kingdom.[20] It was a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with Standard Oil.[21] The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company was a Dutch company founded in 1890 to develop an oilfield in Pangkalan Brandan, North Sumatra,[22] and initially led by August Kessler, Hugo Loudon, and Henri Deterding. The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company (the quotation marks were part of the legal name) was a British company, founded in 1897 by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, and his brother Samuel Samuel.[23] Their father had owned an antique company in Houndsditch, London,[24] which expanded in 1833 to import and sell seashells, after which the company "Shell" took its name.[20][25][26]
For various reasons, the new firm operated as a dual-listed company, whereby the merging companies maintained their legal existence but operated as a single-unit partnership for business purposes. The terms of the merger gave 60 percent stock ownership of the new group to Royal Dutch, and 40 percent to Shell. Both became holding companies for Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, containing the production and refining assets, and Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company, containing the transport and storage assets.[27] National patriotic sensibilities would not permit a full-scale merger or takeover of either of the two companies.[27] The Dutch company, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij at The Hague, was in charge of production and manufacture.[28] The British Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company was based in London, to direct the transport and storage of the products.[28][26]
In 1912, Royal Dutch Shell purchased the Rothschilds' Russian oil assets in a stock deal. The Group's production portfolio then consisted of 53 percent from the East Indies, 29 percent from the Russian Empire, and 17 percent from Romania.[26][29]
During the First World War, Shell was the main supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force.[30] It was also the sole supplier of aviation fuel and supplied 80 percent of the British Army's TNT.[30] It also volunteered all of its shipping to the British Admiralty.[30]
The German invasion of Romania in 1916 saw 17% of the group's worldwide production destroyed.[30] In 1919, Shell took control of the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company and in 1921 formed Shell-Mex Limited, which marketed products under the "Shell" and "Eagle" brands in the United Kingdom. During the Genoa Conference of 1922 Royal Dutch Shell was in negotiations for a monopoly over Soviet oilfields in Baku and Grosny, although the leak of a draft treaty led to breakdown of the talks.[31] In 1929, Shell Chemicals was founded.