Shell Oil Company is the United States-based affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell, a multinational
oil company ("oil major") of Anglo Dutch origins, which is amongst
the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 22,000 Shell employees are
based in the U.S. The company's head office is in Houston, Texas. Shell Oil Company,
including its consolidated companies and its share in equity companies,
is one of America’s leading oil and natural gas producers, natural gas marketers,
gasoline marketers and petrochemical manufacturers.
Until the mid
1980s Shell’s business in the United States was substantially independent with
its stock (“Shell Oil”) being traded on the NYSE and with little direct involvement
from the Group’s central offices in London and The Hague, in the running
of the American business. In 1984 Shell made a bid to purchase those shares of
Shell Oil Company it did not own (around 30%) and despite some opposition from
some minority shareholders which led to a court case, Shell succeeded in the buy-out
for a sum of $5.7 billion.
Despite the acquisition, however,
Shell Oil remained a very independent business. This was partly for complex legal
reasons as RoyalDutch/Shell feared that there could be onerous liability problems
if a closer control of Shell Oil's affairs was taken by the "parent companies".
One of the stranger consequences of this independence was that the Shell
logo used in the US was slightly different from that used in the rest of the world.
In the 1990s Shell Oil's independence began gradually to be eroded as the
"parent companies" took a more hands-on approach in the running of the business.
The logo now used in the United States is the same as that used elsewhere. |
