"This is a very exciting - though daunting - time for our industry. The world is racing ahead with ever-increasing energy needs. We are under pressure to keep up. But this race does not have only one winner. This is a race all of us must win." Linda Cook, Executive Director of Royal Dutch Shell.
Royal Dutch Shell is an MNC oil company with Dutch and British origins. It is the second largest private sector energy corporation in the world, and one of the six oil supermajors. The company's headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands, with its registered office in London (Shell Centre).
Oil giant Shell has over 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) resources under construction. Shell has been exploring and producing oil and gas for more than a century.
The exploration and production work is going on in nearly 40 countries and the company employs around 35,000 people. Royal Dutch Shell reported sales to the tune of $355.78 billion and profits stood at $31.33 billion in 2007.
History
The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of companies was created in February 1907 when the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company Ltd of the United Kingdom merged their operations.
After the merger, 60 per cent of the new Group went to the Dutch arm and 40 per cent to the British. In 1833, the company founder's father, Marcus Samuel, founded an import business to sell seashells to collectors in London.
When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea area in 1892, Samuel realised the potential of exporting oil from the region and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker, the Murex to foray into this market.
Image: Linda Cook, Executive Director of Royal Dutch Shell. | Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: World's 8 most expensive mobiles
Advertisement
