Shell plc

Lore & Background

The merger gave 60 percent ownership to Royal Dutch and 40 percent to Shell, operating as a dual-listed company. During the First World War, Shell was a key supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force and a major provider of aviation fuel, though not the sole supplier. In 1970, Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, later sold in 1994.

Reader's Guide

Shell plc has been a dominant force in the global oil and gas industry for over a century. As one of the 'Seven Sisters,' Shell shaped the petroleum industry from the mid-20th century onward, and its vertical integration—spanning exploration, production, refining, and marketing—has made it a ubiquitous presence in over 99 countries. The company's significance extends beyond energy: it was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015, highlighting its role in climate change debates. Its dual-listed structure and continued prominence on the London Stock Exchange underscore its enduring economic and geopolitical influence.

Did You Know?

• Shell was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 1988–2015.

The 1907 Merger and a Name Born from Seashells

The impetus was straightforward: neither could match the global reach of Standard Oil alone. The resulting arrangement was unusual by modern standards. Rather than a full takeover, both parent companies retained their legal identities while operating as a single commercial partnership, a structure shaped partly by national pride on both sides of the Channel. Royal Dutch held sixty percent of the stock; Shell kept forty. Production and refining assets sat under Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij, while transport and storage fell to Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company in London. Gulbenkian emerged as a major shareholder from the transaction.

From Wartime Supplier to the Seven Sisters

Shell's trajectory from a newly merged entity to the world's dominant oil producer was remarkably swift. During the First World War, the company became the principal fuel supplier to the British Expeditionary Force, provided all of the RAF's aviation fuel, and furnished eighty percent of the Army's TNT, while also volunteering its entire shipping fleet to the Admiralty. From the mid-1940s through the mid-1970s, Shell was one of the "Seven Sisters" that collectively controlled the world petroleum market.

A Vertically Integrated Global Machine

Shell operates across every link in the hydrocarbon chain — exploration, production, refining, transport, distribution, marketing, petrochemicals, power generation, and trading — in more than ninety-nine countries. The scale is staggering: roughly 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent are produced daily, and the company maintains approximately forty-four thousand service stations worldwide. As of the end of 2019, its proved reserves stood at 11.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. In the United States, Shell USA remains one of the group's largest single businesses, while in Brazil the company holds a forty-four percent stake in Raízen, a publicly listed joint venture with Cosan that ranks as the country's third-largest energy firm. Beyond the flagship Shell brand, the portfolio includes Jiffy Lube, Pennzoil, and Quaker State.

Market Weight and the Carbon Shadow

Shell carries the weight of one of the largest corporate footprints on the planet. The company sits third in global oil behind ExxonMobil and Chevron and is the largest investor-owned oil firm in Europe. Yet the environmental ledger is equally prominent. Counting both its own operational emissions and the downstream emissions from every litre of fossil fuel it sells, Shell ranked as the ninth-largest corporate greenhouse-gas producer between 1988 and 2015 — a figure that has made the company a frequent target of climate activism and regulatory scrutiny.