Shell Trading history

To reflect this new capability, the name of American Gasoline was changed to Shell Company of California in 1915. It therefore acquired California Oilfields, Ltd. in 1913 which, when coupled with a new refinery built two years later in Martinez, California, gave the company the ability to fully integrate its operations.

By 1915 the group was producing nearly six million barrels of crude oil a year in the United States.

In 1919 Shell purchased the large Mexican oil fields controlled by the U.K. oil company Mexican Eagle, led by Lord Cowdray.

The company’s principal American subsidiary was Shell Oil Company (SOC), founded in 1922.

Deterding's response was to form a worldwide cartel, and in 1928 he organized a meeting in a Scottish castle at Achnacarry with the heads of Standard Oil of New Jersey and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to achieve this goal.

In 1929 a new company, N.V. Mekog, was established in the Netherlands to produce nitrogeneous fertilizer from coke-oven gases.

Shell Mex House was completed in 1931, and was the head office for Shell’s marketing activity worldwide.

After his marriage to a German woman in 1936, he resigned as general managing director of Royal Dutch and went to live in Germany.

The group's oil interests in Mexico were nationalized in 1938--an early warning of later problems in developing countries.

In 1939, Shell Oil Company of California merged with Shell Petroleum Corporation, whose name was subsequently changed to Shell Oil Company, Inc.

In 1949 the firm adopted its current corporate name, Shell Oil Company.

Around 1952, Shell was the first company to purchase and use a computer in the Netherlands.

In 1958, the company redesigned its service stations in an attempt to make them more compatible with surrounding areas.

In 1959 a joint Shell/Esso venture found natural gas in the Netherlands in Groningen.

In 1970 the company acquired the Billiton mining and metals business in the United Kingdom.

Shell was active in the exploration of North Sea oil, and it found oil in the northern North Sea in 1971.

Bridges, Harry, The Americanization of Shell: The Beginnings and Early Years of Shell Oil Company in the United States, New York: Newcomen Society in North America, 1972.

The structure of the world oil industry was radically altered during the 1973 oil crisis when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) unilaterally raised crude oil prices.

In 1974 Shell Coal International was established.

Beginning in 1978, for example, the company upgraded a number of its refineries and closed many of its less profitable service stations to concentrate on those in metropolitan areas with higher sales volume.

Voser studied business administration at the University of Applied Sciences, Zürich, and took a job with Shell in 1982.

Also under scrutiny was the United States Army, which had used the Rocky Mountain plant to make nerve gas during World War II. Sued in 1983 by the state of Colorado under the federal super-fund law, both the army and Shell offered a plan to pay for cleaning up the site.

Beginning in January 1984, Royal Dutch/Shell Group launched a bid to acquire the remaining shares of Shell Oil Company.

Shell: 75 Years Serving America, Houston: Shell Oil Company, 1987.

Although Royal Dutch/Shell officials contended the company was a strong antiapartheid voice, by the end of 1988, Berkeley, California and Boston, Massachusetts had joined the fray trying to ban purchases of Shell products within city limits.

The Shell group in 1990 was an enormous business enterprise and, alongside Unilever, one of the few examples of a successful venture owned and managed by more than one country.

Located 135 miles offshore and in water of record depth of 2,860 feet, production began at the Auger platform in April 1994 and quickly reached 55,000 barrels a day, more than the anticipated peak of 46,000 barrels.

The Shell Services subsidiary was formed in early 1995 to sell this expertise to companies in the petroleum industry and in other industries.

Shell’s net income reached $2 billion in 1996, an increase of 33 percent over the previous year.

Shell already had two more platforms in the works which were scheduled to begin production by 1997.

"shell oil's income edges up." the oil daily, 26 january 1998.

——, “Shell Oil Poised for Wholesale Changes,” Oil Daily, February 22, 1999.

In October 2000, through its affiliate Coral Energy, Shell also opened a pipeline linking natural gas between the United States and Mexico.

“Shell Oil Launches Hostile Bid for Barrett Resources,” Futures World News, May 1, 2001.

In 2004 Royal Dutch/Shell announced that it had seriously overestimated its proven oil and gas reserves.

By the time Voser became CEO in 2009, Shell had endured six years of declining output.

In February 2010 Shell and Cosan formed a 50:50 joint-venture, Raízen, comprising all of Cosan’s Brazilian ethanol, energy generation, fuel distribution and sugar activities, and all of Shell’s Brazilian retail fuel and aviation distribution businesses.

In 2013 he stepped down as chairman.

In 2015 Royal Dutch Shell agreed to purchase the BG Group, a major producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), in order to solidify its position as one of the leaders in the emerging LNG industry.

Two years later Voser returned to ABB as chairman of its board of directors, and in 2019–20 he also served as CEO.