Shell (company)

See also: Shell

Shell (also called Royal Dutch Petroleum , Royal Dutch Shell , Koninklijke Nederlandse Shell N.V and Shell Oil in North America) is an oil company British and Dutchwoman. The group with the characteristic to have its established general headquarter at the same time with London and $the Hague. The company was founded in 1890 by Jean Kessler, Henri Detering and Hugo Loudon, which obtained from the queen Wilhelmina Netherlands a concession of oil exploration for a named company Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij.

Royal Dutch amalgamates in 1907 with the Shell Transport and British Trading Company . The laws of the time hardly tasting the concept of transnational entities, the two companies thus kept their two distinct identities: the actions Royal Dutch are with dimensions with the purse of Amsterdam while Shell is with. Two boards of directors are also present in the two head offices, which poses certain problems of coordination and independence of the one compared to the other. The company functions by the means of a certain number of agreements of cross shareholding.

It is only in October 2004 that the group announced to want to be grouped under only one structure called Royal Dutch Shell plc., with dimensions mainly with London Stock Exchange but whose administrative and financial seat would be in the Netherlands.

The turnover of this company was of 268 billion US dollars in 2004, with the fourth world rank and its profits were of 18,18 billion dollars, that is to say with the second rank of the most profitable companies.

Origin of the name Shell (French shell)

The name and the Shell logo are closely related to the origins of the company Shell Transport and Trading Company , founded in 1833 by Marcus Samuel, specialized in the trade of the Coquillage S intended for the London collectors of the time victorienne. During a collection of shells on the edges of the sea Caspienne, his/her son (also called Marcus Samuel) realized that the oil transport and resale for lamps and stoves in the Far East could prove to be good a affaire.
In 1892, it makes build the first oil boat in the world and delivers nearly 4.000 tons of Russian Kérosène to Singapore and Bangkok. In 1907, during fusion with Royal Dutch, the company had its own fleet of tankers.

In 2005, the Shell logo was classified 90e with the row of the most known marks in the world by the American magazine Business Week.

Financial data

Source: “OpesC”

Principal shareholders

At December 31st, 2005, the shareholders holding more than 3% of Shell were: the bank Barclays, the Legal insurer and General Group , the funds Capital The Group Companies and the bank UBS. The queen Beatrix of the Netherlands would also hold a significant share of the capital of Shell.

Polemics around Shell

Shell was the target many Boycott S in Europe and North America following certain actions made by the company in several areas of the world. Strongest criticisms come from awkward actions carried out with the Nigeria. Indeed, since the years 1950, the company extracts from oil in the delta of the Niger and destroyed a large part of the environment around what caused several revolts among the local community, the Ogoni S. Their leader charismatic, Ken Saro-Wiwa, pacifist militant for the respect of the human rights and for the environment, passed the last part of its life to fight the Shell company by denouncing the abuses made on the grounds of the Ogoni people. In May 1994, it was stopped and shown incentive with the murder after the death of four Ogonis. Saro-Wiwa always refused the loads retained against him, but after one year of imprisonment, he was declared guilty and condemned to died by a special court. This lawsuit was very largely criticized by the international associations of defense of the human rights like Amnesty International. November 10th 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the movement MOSOP were carried out by Pendaison with Port Harcourt by the Nigerian government of the general Sani Abacha.

External bonds

Royal The Dutch/Shell Group off Companies

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