Shell plc

• Date founded: 1907
• Industry: Oil and gas; petrochemicals
• Corporate Headquarters: London, England
• Type: Public

Overview

Shell, formerly Royal Dutch Shell, is a British multinational company and consistently one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. The company’s origins and name can be traced back to an antique shop on the streets of 1830s London. By the turn of the twentieth century, the business had expanded and evolved to become a pioneering force in the burgeoning oil transportation industry. In an effort to compete with Standard Oil—the dominant American company of the time—the British company merged with a Dutch competitor in 1907 to officially form Royal Dutch Shell. In the twenty-first century, Shell was a worldwide leader in the exploration, refining, transportation, and distribution of oil, gas, and petrochemicals. The company operated in more than seventy nations in the mid-2020s, employing more than 98,000 people.

History

In 1833, British antique dealer Marcus Samuel began selling seashells imported from Asia from his London East End shop. Samuel’s business proved very lucrative, and he left it to his two sons—Marcus Jr. and Samuel—when he died in 1870. By the 1880s, the children had expanded their father’s import-export business to include tools, machinery, and textiles. About 1890, Samuel was on a boat trip to collect seashells by the Caspian Sea when he realized there was potential in the exporting of lamp oil. At that time, oil was primarily used for lubrication and as a lighting fuel for lamps.

Getting the oil from the Caspian region to England by ship posed a problem, as oil barrels were cumbersome and prone to leakage. Marcus and Samuel ordered a fleet of tanker ships built that could safely transport the oil—in the process, revolutionizing the transportation of oil in bulk quantities. This allowed the Samuel brothers to export more oil at less expense than conventional land transportation such as trains. The brothers first named their oil transport company the Tank Syndicate, but changed it to the Shell Transport and Trading Company in 1897. The name was chosen to honor their father’s legacy as a trader in seashells.

The Shell Company grew to be one of the leading oil companies in the world, but it faced competition from several rivals. One was the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, a smaller venture formed in 1890 that began refining and transporting oil from Dutch-held colonies in Indonesia. A more serious threat was Standard Oil, an American business run by industrialist John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller had built Standard Oil into a business juggernaut and was notorious for attempting to stamp out his competitors. At about the same time, engineers had developed the first combustion engines and started to build the first automobiles. These automobiles ran on gasoline, a by-product of crude oil refining.

With the demand for oil and gasoline poised to explode, the Shell Company wanted to ensure it could compete against Standard Oil on a global scale. In 1907, the Shell Transport and Trading Company merged with the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company to form the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Royal Dutch Petroleum had a 60 percent interest in the new company, while the British Shell Company had a 40 percent interest. To contrast its brand with the blue color used by Standard Oil, Shell chose red and yellow as its signature colors. While it had originally adopted a mussel shell as its logo, in 1907, the company began using the giant scallop shell as its official symbol.

Shell, as the company was most often called, rapidly expanded its operations throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia. It also established exploratory operations in Texas, Mexico, Romania, Russia, and Venezuela. In the years after World War II (1939–1945), Shell adjusted to a changing oil market by beginning offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico and began exploratory efforts in Africa. In the 1950s, Shell began using massive supertankers to transport even more oil and started selling gasoline under its own brand name.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Shell began diversifying into other fuel sources such as coal, nuclear power, and petrochemicals. However, its coal and nuclear efforts were unsuccessful and phased out by the end of the twentieth century. In the 1990s, Shell invested in gas-to-liquid technology that converts natural gas—which is in gaseous form—into liquid fuels such as gasoline or diesel. In 2005, the Royal Dutch Shell Group officially dissolved its 1907 merger and reformed under a new corporate entity—Royal Dutch Shell plc. In December 2021, the company announced it would drop part of its name to officially become Shell. The change took effect in January 2022 as the company moved its headquarters to London and unified its share structure. Later in the year, Shell withdrew from the Cambo oil field project near the Shetland Islands. In 2023, Shell reported the highest profits for 2022 in its 115-year history, doubling its earnings from the previous year. In January 2025, Shell exited the Atlantic Shores offshore wind farm project off the coast of New Jersey, citing increased competition, delays, and a changing market. In that year too, Shell finalized the sale of The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, marking its exit from onshore oil production in the Niger Delta while continuing to focus on deepwater operations and integrated gas assets in Nigeria. Regulatory challenges and a shifting political environment influenced these moves.

Impact

The company headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell was in the Hague, the Netherlands, though it is now headquartered in London, England, since 2022. In the mid-2020s, the company reported operations in more than seventy countries, with a workforce of over 98,000 people. Shell’s business operations are divided into several separate ventures. Its upstream businesses manage the exploration and removal of crude oil and natural gas, the transportation of those fuels, and the infrastructure needed to deliver fuels to markets worldwide. Downstream businesses include Shell’s refineries, gas stations, heating oil sales, aviation and marine fuel, and other petrochemicals.

Shell’s integrated gas ventures include liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquid capabilities. It also markets and trades natural gas, crude oil, and electricity. In 2025, Shell strengthened its integrated gas business through the acquisition of Pavilion Energy, expanding its liquified natural gas (LNG) supply portfolio, regasification capacity, and LNG bunkering operations. Its energy businesses in the 2020s explored emerging technologies and alternative fuel sources, such as wind and solar energy. The company focuses on products that show commercial promise, such as biofuels, charging for battery-powered electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuels. In 2019, Shell pledged to increase its use of advanced recycling by processing 1 million tonnes (approximately 2.2 billion pounds) of plastic waste into pyrolysis oil each year by 2025. However, in its 2023 sustainability report, the company called this goal “unfeasible,” citing technological and market challenges. Despite this, Shell continued expanding its plastic production capabilities, including opening a large-scale chemical complex near Pittsburgh.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Shell purchased discounted Russian crude oil, which led to criticism. The company later announced plans to reduce these purchases and allocate profits from any Russian oil to humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Only weeks later, Shell announced it would cease buying Russian oil and gas and close its service stations in Russia. In November 2024, Shell won an appeal in a Dutch court against Friends of the Earth, overturning a previous ruling that required the company to cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent to align with the Paris Climate Accords. Shell maintained its net-zero-by-2050 ambition, but its 2024 annual report noted that climate policy, commodity prices, and decarbonization trends could impact asset values.

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