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132-725: During the Lower Cretaceous (~150–100 Ma) Rangitata Orogeny , an accretionary wedge accumulated and was uplifted on the margin of Gondwana in present-day New Zealand. The resulting topography was eroded throughout the Cretaceous. After the Rangitata Orogeny, seafloor spreading commenced during the Middle Cretaceous. This resulted in the formation of the Tasman Sea as New Zealand separated from Australia . Normal faults, including

264-556: A Ferranti Mark 1* , was assembled and used at the Shell laboratory in Amsterdam. In 1970, Shell acquired the mining company Billiton , which it subsequently sold in 1994. In 1989, Shell redesigned a $ 3-billion natural gas platform in the North Sea , raising its height one to two meters, to accommodate an anticipated sea level rise due to global warming . In the 1990s, protesters criticised

396-538: A Berriasian–Barremian warm-dry phase, an Aptian–Santonian warm-wet phase, and a Campanian–Maastrichtian cool-dry phase. As in the Cenozoic, the 400,000 year eccentricity cycle was the dominant orbital cycle governing carbon flux between different reservoirs and influencing global climate. The location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) was roughly the same as in the present. The cooling trend of

528-572: A US$ 20 billion gas project that was to be constructed in the US state of Louisiana . A new CEO Ben van Beurden was appointed in January 2014, prior to the announcement that the corporation's overall performance in 2013 was 38 percent lower than in 2012—the value of Shell's shares fell by 3 percent as a result. Following the sale of the majority of its Australian assets in February 2014, the corporation plans to sell

660-667: A continental shelf environment as part of the same broad transgressive sequence under which the Mangahewa Formation was deposited. Faulting is pervasive in the Kapuni Group and predominantly consists of southwest–northeast right-lateral and northwest–southeast left-lateral strike-slip faults. These faults were formed under transpressional and compressional stress regimes during the Late Eocene to Late Miocene and are indicative of an east–west direction of maximum compressive stress. In

792-581: A full-scale merger or takeover of either of the two companies. The Dutch company, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij at The Hague , was in charge of production and manufacture. The British Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company was based in London, to direct the transport and storage of the products. In 1912, Royal Dutch Shell purchased the Rothschilds ' Russian oil assets in a stock deal. The Group's production portfolio then consisted of 53 percent from

924-414: A fund that would go towards humanitarian aid to Ukraine. On 8 March, Shell announced that it would stop buying Russian oil and gas and close its service stations in the country. In 2022, the major oil and gas companies, including Shell, reported sharp rises in interim revenues and profits. In fact, this rise in profit for Shell was so sharp, that 2022 was the company's best year, as Shell recorded double

1056-679: A further US$ 15 billion worth of assets in the period leading up to 2015, with deals announced in Australia, Brazil and Italy. Shell announced on 8 April 2015 it had agreed to buy BG Group for £47 billion (US$ 70 billion), subject to shareholder and regulatory approval. The acquisition was completed in February 2016, resulting in Shell surpassing Chevron Corporation and becoming the world's second largest non-state oil company. On 7 June 2016, Shell announced that it would build an ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , after spending several years doing an environmental cleanup of

1188-459: A loss of $ 21.7 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite reducing its operating expenses by 12%, or $ 4.5 billion, according to a Morningstar analysis cited by Barron's . In November 2021, Shell announced that it is planning to relocate their headquarters to London, abandon its dual share structure, and change its name from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc. The company's name change

1320-493: A self-supporting unit without subsidies from other parts of the company. Traditionally, Shell was a heavily decentralised business worldwide (especially in the downstream) with companies in over 100 countries, each of which operated with a high degree of independence. The upstream tended to be far more centralised with much of the technical and financial direction coming from the central offices in The Hague . The upstream oil sector

1452-413: A single-unit partnership for business purposes. The terms of the merger gave 60 percent stock ownership of the new group to Royal Dutch, and 40 percent to Shell. Both became holding companies for Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij , containing the production and refining assets, and Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company, containing the transport and storage assets. National patriotic sensibilities would not permit

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1584-607: A straight shell, flourished in the seas along with reef-building rudist clams. Inoceramids were also particularly notable among Cretaceous bivalves, and they have been used to identify major biotic turnovers such as at the Turonian-Coniacian boundary. Predatory gastropods with drilling habits were widespread. Globotruncanid foraminifera and echinoderms such as sea urchins and starfish (sea stars) thrived. Ostracods were abundant in Cretaceous marine settings; ostracod species characterised by high male sexual investment had

1716-470: A type of snail shell ), to enter this market; by 1907 the company had a fleet. Although for several decades the company had a refinery at Shell Haven on the Thames, there is no evidence of this having provided the name. The Shell logo is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world. This logo is known as the " pecten " after the sea shell Pecten maximus (the giant scallop ), on which its design

1848-551: A ~0.6 °C increase in temperature. The latter warming interval, occurring at the very end of the Cretaceous, was triggered by the activity of the Deccan Traps. The LKEPCI lasted into the Late Palaeocene , when it gave way to another supergreenhouse interval. The production of large quantities of magma, variously attributed to mantle plumes or to extensional tectonics , further pushed sea levels up, so that large areas of

1980-562: Is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration , production , refining , transport , distribution and marketing , petrochemicals , power generation , and trading . Shell has operations in over 99 countries, produces around 3.7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has around 44,000 service stations worldwide. As of 31 December 2019, Shell had total proved reserves of 11.1 billion barrels (1.76 × 10  m ) of oil equivalent. Shell USA , its principal subsidiary in

2112-578: Is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era , as well as the longest. At around 79   million years, it is the ninth and longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic . The name is derived from the Latin creta , ' chalk ', which is abundant in the latter half of the period. It is usually abbreviated K , for its German translation Kreide . The Cretaceous

2244-512: Is also commonly known as the "exploration and production" sector. Downstream operations, which now also includes the chemicals business, generate the majority of Shell's profits worldwide and is known for its global network of more than 40,000 petrol stations and its various oil refineries . The downstream business, which in some countries also included oil refining , generally included a retail petrol station network, lubricants manufacture and marketing, industrial fuel and lubricants sales, and

2376-476: Is based. The yellow and red colours used are thought to relate to the colours of the flag of Spain , as Shell built early service stations in California , previously a Spanish colony . The current revision of the logo was designed by Raymond Loewy in 1971. The slash was removed from the name "Royal Dutch/Shell" in 2005, concurrent with moves to merge the two legally separate companies (Royal Dutch and Shell) to

2508-552: Is found in England, northern France, the low countries , northern Germany , Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea . Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of loose sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites . Among the fossils it contains are sea urchins , belemnites , ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus . In southern Europe,

2640-522: Is linked to The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company. In 1833, the founder's father, Marcus Samuel Sr., founded an import business to sell seashells to London collectors. When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea area in 1892, the younger Samuel realised there was potential in exporting lamp oil from the region and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker , the Murex (Latin for

2772-509: Is now used worldwide. In many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. From youngest to oldest, the subdivisions of the Cretaceous period are: The lower boundary of the Cretaceous is currently undefined, and the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary is currently the only system boundary to lack a defined Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP). Placing a GSSP for this boundary has been difficult because of

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2904-505: The Argentinian town of Magdalena, Buenos Aires , the Shell tanker Estrella pampeana collided with a German cargo ship , emptying its contents into the lake, polluting the environment, drinkable water, plants and animals. Over a decade after the spill, a referendum held in Magdalena determined the acceptance of a US$ 9.5 million compensatory payout from Shell. Shell denied responsibility for

3036-771: The East Indies , 29 percent from the Russian Empire , and 17 percent from Romania . During the First World War , Shell was the main supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force . It was also the sole supplier of aviation fuel and supplied 80 percent of the British Army's TNT . It also volunteered all of its shipping to the British Admiralty . The German invasion of Romania in 1916 saw 17% of

3168-680: The Mancos Shale of western North America. These shales are an important source rock for oil and gas , for example in the subsurface of the North Sea. In northwestern Europe, chalk deposits from the Upper Cretaceous are characteristic for the Chalk Group , which forms the white cliffs of Dover on the south coast of England and similar cliffs on the French Normandian coast. The group

3300-652: The New York Stock Exchange on 18 November 2005. The shares of the company were issued at a 60/40 advantage for the shareholders of Royal Dutch in line with the original ownership of the Shell Group. During the 2009 Iraqi oil services contracts tender , a consortium led by Shell (45%) and which included Petronas (30%) was awarded a production contract for the "Majnoon field" in the south of Iraq, which contains an estimated 12.6 billion barrels (2.00 × 10  m ) of oil. The "West Qurna 1 field" production contract

3432-402: The New York Stock Exchange . A core component of Big Oil , Shell is the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue (after ExxonMobil ), and among the world's largest companies out of any industry. Measured by both its own emissions, and the emissions of all the fossil fuels it sells, Shell was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions in

3564-684: The North American Cordillera , as the Nevadan orogeny was followed by the Sevier and Laramide orogenies . Gondwana had begun to break up during the Jurassic Period, but its fragmentation accelerated during the Cretaceous and was largely complete by the end of the period. South America , Antarctica , and Australia rifted away from Africa (though India and Madagascar remained attached to each other until around 80 million years ago); thus,

3696-464: The Paradise Papers , a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment , revealed that Argentine Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren was revealed to have managed the offshore companies 'Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited' and 'Sol Antilles y Guianas Limited', both subsidiaries of Shell. One is the main bidder for the purchase of diesel oil by the government through

3828-487: The Russian invasion of Ukraine and in the midst of the growing boycott of Russian economy and related divestments , Shell bought a cargo of discounted Russian crude oil. The next day, following criticism from Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba , Shell defended the purchase as a short term necessity, but also announced that it intended to reduce such purchases, and it would put profits from any Russian oil it purchases into

3960-543: The Selli Event . Early Aptian tropical sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 27–32 °C, based on TEX 86 measurements from the equatorial Pacific. During the Aptian, Milankovitch cycles governed the occurrence of anoxic events by modulating the intensity of the hydrological cycle and terrestrial runoff. The early Aptian was also notable for its millennial scale hyperarid events in the mid-latitudes of Asia. The BAWI itself

4092-678: The Sultan of Muscat . In 1952, IPC offered financial support to raise an armed force that would assist the Sultan in occupying the interior region of Oman , an area that geologists believed to be rich in oil. This led to the 1954 outbreak of the Jebel Akhdar War in Oman that lasted for more than 5 years. Around 1952, Shell was the first company to purchase and use a computer in the Netherlands. The computer,

Kapuni - Misplaced Pages Continue

4224-613: The Terrain Crétacé , using strata in the Paris Basin and named for the extensive beds of chalk ( calcium carbonate deposited by the shells of marine invertebrates , principally coccoliths ), found in the upper Cretaceous of Western Europe . The name Cretaceous was derived from the Latin creta , meaning chalk . The twofold division of the Cretaceous was implemented by Conybeare and Phillips in 1822. Alcide d'Orbigny in 1840 divided

4356-707: The Turonian Age, based on isotopic evidence. However, this has subsequently been suggested to be the result of inconsistent isotopic proxies, with evidence of polar rainforests during this time interval at 82° S. Rafting by ice of stones into marine environments occurred during much of the Cretaceous, but evidence of deposition directly from glaciers is limited to the Early Cretaceous of the Eromanga Basin in southern Australia . Flowering plants (angiosperms) make up around 90% of living plant species today. Prior to

4488-475: The tuatara ) disappeared from North America and Europe after the Early Cretaceous , and were absent from North Africa and northern South America by the early Late Cretaceous . The cause of the decline of Rhynchocephalia remains unclear, but has often been suggested to be due to competition with advanced lizards and mammals. They appear to have remained diverse in high-latitude southern South America during

4620-479: The 1980s. With four wells having been established by the end of field appraisal in 1963, Kapuni has grown to presently consist of twenty wells across nine well sites. Natural gas and liquids are separated, processed, and treated for CO 2 onsite. 39°28′36″S 174°10′21″E  /  39.47667°S 174.17250°E  / -39.47667; 174.17250 Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( IPA : / k r ɪ ˈ t eɪ ʃ ə s / krih- TAY -shəss )

4752-964: The Albian regularly expanded northward in tandem with expansions of subtropical high pressure belts. The Cedar Mountain Formation's Soap Wash flora indicates a mean annual temperature of between 19 and 26 °C in Utah at the Albian-Cenomanian boundary. Tropical SSTs during the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum were at least 30 °C, though one study estimated them as high as between 33 and 42 °C. An intermediate estimate of ~33-34 °C has also been given. Meanwhile, deep ocean temperatures were as much as 15 to 20 °C (27 to 36 °F) warmer than today's; one study estimated that deep ocean temperatures were between 12 and 20 °C during

4884-565: The Cenozoic Era   —   the ichthyosaurs , last remaining temnospondyls ( Koolasuchus ), and nonmammalian cynodonts ( Tritylodontidae )   —   were already extinct millions of years before the event occurred. Coccolithophorids and molluscs , including ammonites , rudists , freshwater snails , and mussels , as well as organisms whose food chain included these shell builders, became extinct or suffered heavy losses. For example, ammonites are thought to have been

5016-621: The Coniacian through the Maastrichtian. During the Cretaceous, the late- Paleozoic -to-early-Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangaea completed its tectonic breakup into the present-day continents , although their positions were substantially different at the time. As the Atlantic Ocean widened, the convergent-margin mountain building ( orogenies ) that had begun during the Jurassic continued in

5148-605: The Cretaceous is sharply defined, being placed at an iridium -rich layer found worldwide that is believed to be associated with the Chicxulub impact crater , with its boundaries circumscribing parts of the Yucatán Peninsula and extending into the Gulf of Mexico . This layer has been dated at 66.043 Mya. At the end of the Cretaceous, the impact of a large body with the Earth may have been

5280-555: The Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls . Because the Alpine mountain chains did not yet exist in the Cretaceous, these deposits formed on the southern edge of the European continental shelf , at the margin of the Tethys Ocean . During the Cretaceous, the present North American continent was isolated from the other continents. In

5412-527: The Cretaceous seas. Stagnation of deep sea currents in middle Cretaceous times caused anoxic conditions in the sea water leaving the deposited organic matter undecomposed. Half of the world's petroleum reserves were laid down at this time in the anoxic conditions of what would become the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico. In many places around the world, dark anoxic shales were formed during this interval, such as

Kapuni - Misplaced Pages Continue

5544-510: The Eocene Mangahewa Formation and were deposited as part of a general transgressive sequence. The reservoirs are predominantly sandstones, shales, and coals deposited in shore, fluvial, and estuarine environments. Kapuni's reservoirs are located below a depth of 3000 m. They range in average thickness from 20 m to 130 m, average natural-gas fraction from 0.06 to 0.95, and average porosity from 12.2% to 16.8% by volume. Hydrocarbons of

5676-710: The Eocene organic-rich shales and sandstones. Cretaceous to Paleocene rift-related normal faults were reactivated in the Late Eocene (~40–34 Ma) and experienced substantial basin inversion in the Late Miocene (~12–5 Ma). During this time, north-plunging inversion structures, including the Kapuni Anticline, developed along the Manaia Fault and other rift-structures in the Taranaki Basin's Eastern Mobile Belt. Further west, in

5808-770: The French Cretaceous into five étages (stages): the Neocomian , Aptian, Albian, Turonian, and Senonian, later adding the Urgonian between Neocomian and Aptian and the Cenomanian between the Albian and Turonian. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs , or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series . In older literature, the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series: Neocomian (lower/early), Gallic (middle) and Senonian (upper/late). A subdivision into 12 stages , all originating from European stratigraphy,

5940-645: The Jurassic, the North Atlantic already opened, leaving a proto-ocean between Europe and North America. From north to south across the continent, the Western Interior Seaway started forming. This inland sea separated the elevated areas of Laramidia in the west and Appalachia in the east. Three dinosaur clades found in Laramidia (troodontids, therizinosaurids and oviraptorosaurs) are absent from Appalachia from

6072-660: The K3E reservoir suggests an intraformational origin. As a result of diagenesis, the K3E reservoir contains areas exhibiting significant secondary porosity and enhanced reservoir quality along with tight, cemented regions of poor reservoir quality. New Zealand's first natural gas field, Kapuni was discovered in 1959 by a team consisting of Royal Dutch/Shell , British Petroleum , and Todd Energy . Production of oil (mainly condensate and natural gas liquids ) began in 1970, and production of natural gas began in 1971. Production peaked in 1977 at over 64 PJ/year of gas and nearly 31 PJ/year of oil. Kapuni's production declined precipitously after

6204-632: The K3E reservoir, one of the field's main producing reservoirs. Beginning approximately 5 Ma, thermal maturation of source rocks expelled CO 2 , which dissolved into groundwater. The acidic groundwater migrated updip towards the crest of the Kapuni anticline, dissolving feldspar and carbonates along its route. Intervals of coarser clasts experienced net dissolution, while finer-grained intervals experienced precipitation of authigenic clays, carbonates, and quartz. Precipitation of quartz and carbonate cements began approximately 4 Ma at temperatures exceeding 100 ° C. The carbon isotope signature of carbonate cements in

6336-413: The Kapuni Field are trapped by the Kapuni Anticline, in the hanging wall of the east-dipping Manaia Fault, a reverse fault in the Eastern Mobile Belt. The Kapuni Anticline is asymmetric, doubly-plunging, and approximately 18 km long and 8 km wide. The Manaia Fault initially developed as a normal fault bounding the Manaia Graben during Cretaceous to Early Eocene rifting associated with the opening of

6468-415: The LKEPCI. During this period of relatively cool temperatures, the ITCZ became narrower, while the strength of both summer and winter monsoons in East Asia was directly correlated to atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Laramidia likewise had a seasonal, monsoonal climate. The Maastrichtian was a time of chaotic, highly variable climate. Two upticks in global temperatures are known to have occurred during

6600-416: The Late Cretaceous, where lizards remained rare, with their remains outnumbering terrestrial lizards 200:1. Choristoderes , a group of freshwater aquatic reptiles that first appeared during the preceding Jurassic, underwent a major evolutionary radiation in Asia during the Early Cretaceous, which represents the high point of choristoderan diversity, including long necked forms such as Hyphalosaurus and

6732-399: The Late Cretaceous-Early Palaeogene Cool Interval (LKEPCI). Tropical SSTs declined from around 35 °C in the early Campanian to around 28 °C in the Maastrichtian. Deep ocean temperatures declined to 9 to 12 °C, though the shallow temperature gradient between tropical and polar seas remained. Regional conditions in the Western Interior Seaway changed little between the MKH and

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6864-486: The MKH. Mean annual temperatures at the poles during the MKH exceeded 14 °C. Such hot temperatures during the MKH resulted in a very gentle temperature gradient from the equator to the poles; the latitudinal temperature gradient during the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum was 0.54 °C per ° latitude for the Southern Hemisphere and 0.49 °C per ° latitude for the Northern Hemisphere, in contrast to present day values of 1.07 and 0.69 °C per ° latitude for

6996-412: The MKH. The poles were so warm that ectothermic reptiles were able to inhabit them. Beginning in the Santonian, near the end of the MKH, the global climate began to cool, with this cooling trend continuing across the Campanian. This period of cooling, driven by falling levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused the end of the MKH and the transition into a cooler climatic interval, known formally as

7128-404: The Maastrichtian, bucking the trend of overall cooler temperatures during the LKEPCI. Between 70 and 69 Ma and 66–65 Ma, isotopic ratios indicate elevated atmospheric CO 2 pressures with levels of 1000–1400 ppmV and mean annual temperatures in west Texas between 21 and 23 °C (70 and 73 °F). Atmospheric CO 2 and temperature relations indicate a doubling of pCO 2 was accompanied by

7260-445: The Manaia Fault, formed as the Taranaki Basin developed during seafloor spreading . Rifting continued until the Eocene (~56 Ma), when the Taranaki Basin underwent passive subsidence. Kapuni collected abundant organic material under coastal plain and fluvio-estuarine environments during much of the Eocene. A broad marine transgression occurred in the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene (~28–20 Ma), and mudstones were deposited on top of

7392-419: The South Atlantic and Indian Oceans were newly formed. Such active rifting lifted great undersea mountain chains along the welts, raising eustatic sea levels worldwide. To the north of Africa the Tethys Sea continued to narrow. During most of the Late Cretaceous, North America would be divided in two by the Western Interior Seaway , a large interior sea, separating Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to

7524-514: The Southern and Northern hemispheres, respectively. This meant weaker global winds, which drive the ocean currents, and resulted in less upwelling and more stagnant oceans than today. This is evidenced by widespread black shale deposition and frequent anoxic events . Tropical SSTs during the late Albian most likely averaged around 30 °C. Despite this high SST, seawater was not hypersaline at this time, as this would have required significantly higher temperatures still. On land, arid zones in

7656-438: The Taranaki Basin correspond with a period of elevated uplift rates along the Alpine Fault on New Zealand's South Island that has also been attributed to the nearby subduction zone. Kapuni is located on the Australian Plate, west of the plate boundary zone and above the subducting Pacific Plate. Current geothermal gradients in the Taranaki Basin vary from 33 to 35 ° C/km offshore near the Maui Field and in northern portions of

7788-400: The Taranaki Basin's Western Stable Platform, Cretaceous rift-related faults experienced little strain. Cenozoic compression in the Taranaki Basin has generally been attributed to a change in stress regime caused by the development of the Hikurangi Subduction System between the Pacific and Australian Plates off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. Late Eocene compressional structures in

7920-428: The Taranaki Peninsula to 25 ° C/km in Kapuni and other southeast portions of the Taranaki Peninsula. Kapuni's source rocks are a series of type III kerogen -rich coal sequences in the Eocene (~56–34 Ma) Mangahewa Formation of the Kapuni Group. These coals were deposited under coastal plain and fluo-estuarine environments and reach up to 10 m in thickness. Like its source rocks, Kapuni's reservoir layers are located in

8052-424: The Tasman Sea. Dextral transpression associated with the Hikurangi Subduction System caused fault reactivation and basin inversion during the Eocene and Miocene, resulting in the development of the Kapuni Anticline. Maximum throw on the Manaia Fault is 900 m. Middle Oligocene (~30–25 Ma) mudstones of the Otaraoa Formation overly the Mangahewa Formation, sealing Kapuni's reservoirs. These mudstones were deposited under

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8184-403: The Tethys to the Arctic Ocean and enabling biotic exchange between the two oceans. At the peak of the Cretaceous transgression , one-third of Earth's present land area was submerged. The Cretaceous is justly famous for its chalk ; indeed, more chalk formed in the Cretaceous than in any other period in the Phanerozoic . Mid-ocean ridge activity—or rather, the circulation of seawater through

8316-426: The United States, is one of its largest businesses. Shell holds 44% of Raízen , a publicly-listed joint venture with Cosan , which is the third-largest Brazil -based energy company. In addition to the main Shell brand, the company also owns the Jiffy Lube , Pennzoil and Quaker State brands. Shell is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index and had a market capitalisation of US$ 199 billion on 15 September 2022,

8448-425: The ancestors of modern-day birds also diversified. They inhabited every continent, and were even found in cold polar latitudes. Pterosaurs were common in the early and middle Cretaceous, but as the Cretaceous proceeded they declined for poorly understood reasons (once thought to be due to competition with early birds , but now it is understood avian adaptive radiation is not consistent with pterosaur decline ). By

8580-454: The appointment of Jorma Ollila , chairman and CEO of Nokia at the time, to succeed Aad Jacobs as the company's non-executive chairman on 1 June 2006. Ollila is the first Shell chairman to be neither Dutch nor British. Other non-executive directors include Maarten van den Bergh , Wim Kok , Nina Henderson, Lord Kerr , Adelbert van Roxe, and Christine Morin-Postel. Since 3 January 2014, Ben van Beurden has been CEO of Shell. His predecessor

8712-477: The company's environmental record, particularly the possible pollution caused by the proposed disposal of the Brent Spar platform into the North Sea. Despite support from the UK government, Shell reversed the decision under public pressure but maintained that sinking the platform would have been environmentally better. Shell subsequently published an unequivocal commitment to sustainable development , supported by executive speeches reinforcing this commitment. Shell

8844-408: The continental crust were covered with shallow seas. The Tethys Sea connecting the tropical oceans east to west also helped to warm the global climate. Warm-adapted plant fossils are known from localities as far north as Alaska and Greenland , while dinosaur fossils have been found within 15 degrees of the Cretaceous south pole . It was suggested that there was Antarctic marine glaciation in

8976-406: The core competencies on which the company was founded. Similar competencies were required for natural gas, which has become one of the most important businesses in which Shell is involved, and which contributes a significant proportion of the company's profits. While the vertically integrated business model provided significant economies of scale and barriers to entry , each business now seeks to be

9108-446: The cost of a planned $ 28bn capital spending programme. Shell invited buyers to submit indicative bids, due by 22 March, with a plan to raise $ 2–3bn from the sale. In June 2010, Shell agreed to acquire all the business of East Resources for a cash consideration of $ 4.7 billion. The transaction included East Resources' tight gas fields. Over the course of 2013, the corporation began the sale of its US shale gas assets and canceled

9240-416: The departure of the chairman Philip Watts . A lawsuit resulted in the payment of $ 450 million to non-American shareholders in 2007. As a result of the scandal, the corporate structure was simplified. Two classes of ordinary shares, A (code RDSA) and B (code RDSB), identical but for the tax treatment of dividends, were issued for the company. In November 2004, following a period of turmoil caused by

9372-544: The early and mid-Cretaceous (becoming extinct during the late Cretaceous Cenomanian-Turonian anoxic event ), plesiosaurs throughout the entire period, and mosasaurs appearing in the Late Cretaceous. Sea turtles in the form of Cheloniidae and Panchelonioidea lived during the period and survived the extinction event. Panchelonioidea is today represented by a single species; the leatherback sea turtle . The Hesperornithiformes were flightless, marine diving birds that swam like grebes . Baculites , an ammonite genus with

9504-543: The east, then receded late in the period, leaving thick marine deposits sandwiched between coal beds. Bivalve palaeobiogeography also indicates that Africa was split in half by a shallow sea during the Coniacian and Santonian, connecting the Tethys with the South Atlantic by way of the central Sahara and Central Africa, which were then underwater. Yet another shallow seaway ran between what is now Norway and Greenland, connecting

9636-721: The end of the AACS, which ended around 111 Ma with the Paquier/Urbino Thermal Maximum, giving way to the Mid-Cretaceous Hothouse (MKH), which lasted from the early Albian until the early Campanian. Faster rates of seafloor spreading and entry of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are believed to have initiated this period of extreme warmth, along with high flood basalt activity. The MKH was punctuated by multiple thermal maxima of extreme warmth. The Leenhardt Thermal Event (LTE) occurred around 110 Ma, followed shortly by

9768-497: The end of the Cretaceous. The high sea level and warm climate of the Cretaceous meant large areas of the continents were covered by warm, shallow seas, providing habitat for many marine organisms. The Cretaceous was named for the extensive chalk deposits of this age in Europe, but in many parts of the world, the deposits from the Cretaceous are of marine limestone , a rock type that is formed under warm, shallow marine conditions. Due to

9900-459: The end of the period only three highly specialized families remained; Pteranodontidae , Nyctosauridae , and Azhdarchidae . The Liaoning lagerstätte ( Yixian Formation ) in China is an important site, full of preserved remains of numerous types of small dinosaurs, birds and mammals, that provides a glimpse of life in the Early Cretaceous. The coelurosaur dinosaurs found there represent types of

10032-407: The enlarged ridges—enriched the oceans in calcium ; this made the oceans more saturated, as well as increased the bioavailability of the element for calcareous nanoplankton . These widespread carbonates and other sedimentary deposits make the Cretaceous rock record especially fine. Famous formations from North America include the rich marine fossils of Kansas 's Smoky Hill Chalk Member and

10164-528: The extinction fed on insects , larvae , worms , and snails, which in turn fed on dead plant and animal matter. Scientists theorise that these organisms survived the collapse of plant-based food chains because they fed on detritus . In stream communities , few groups of animals became extinct. Stream communities rely less on food from living plants and more on detritus that washes in from land. This particular ecological niche buffered them from extinction. Similar, but more complex patterns have been found in

10296-584: The firm operated as a dual-listed company , whereby the British and Dutch companies maintained their legal existence and separate listings but operated as a single-unit partnership. From 2005 to 2022, the company had its headquarters in The Hague, its registered office in London and had two types of shares (A and B). In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc . The Royal Dutch Shell Group

10428-612: The first records of the gharial-like Neochoristodera , which appear to have evolved in the regional absence of aquatic neosuchian crocodyliformes. During the Late Cretaceous the neochoristodere Champsosaurus was widely distributed across western North America. Due to the extreme climatic warmth in the Arctic, choristoderans were able to colonise it too during the Late Cretaceous. In the seas, rays , modern sharks and teleosts became common. Marine reptiles included ichthyosaurs in

10560-493: The genus Berriasella , but its use as a stratigraphic indicator has been questioned, as its first appearance does not correlate with that of C. alpina . The boundary is officially considered by the International Commission on Stratigraphy to be approximately 145 million years ago, but other estimates have been proposed based on U-Pb geochronology, ranging as young as 140 million years ago. The upper boundary of

10692-620: The group Maniraptora , which includes modern birds and their closest non-avian relatives, such as dromaeosaurs , oviraptorosaurs , therizinosaurs , troodontids along with other avialans . Fossils of these dinosaurs from the Liaoning lagerstätte are notable for the presence of hair-like feathers . Insects diversified during the Cretaceous, and the oldest known ants , termites and some lepidopterans , akin to butterflies and moths , appeared. Aphids , grasshoppers and gall wasps appeared. Rhynchocephalians (which today only includes

10824-664: The group's worldwide production destroyed. In 1919, Shell took control of the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company and in 1921 formed Shell-Mex Limited, which marketed products under the "Shell" and "Eagle" brands in the United Kingdom. During the Genoa Conference of 1922 Royal Dutch Shell was in negotiations for a monopoly over Soviet oilfields in Baku and Grosny , although the leak of a draft treaty led to breakdown of

10956-412: The high sea level, there was extensive space for such sedimentation . Because of the relatively young age and great thickness of the system, Cretaceous rocks are evident in many areas worldwide. Chalk is a rock type characteristic for (but not restricted to) the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths , microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores , a type of algae that prospered in

11088-546: The highest rates of extinction and turnover. Thylacocephala , a class of crustaceans, went extinct in the Late Cretaceous. The first radiation of the diatoms (generally siliceous shelled, rather than calcareous ) in the oceans occurred during the Cretaceous; freshwater diatoms did not appear until the Miocene . Calcareous nannoplankton were important components of the marine microbiota and important as biostratigraphic markers and recorders of environmental change. The Cretaceous

11220-464: The impact of a large asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary (K–Pg boundary), a geologic signature associated with the mass extinction that lies between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras . The Cretaceous as a separate period was first defined by Belgian geologist Jean d'Omalius d'Halloy in 1822 as

11352-481: The largest of any company listed on the LSE and the 44th-largest of any company in the world. By 2021 revenues, Shell is the second-largest investor-owned oil company in the world (after ExxonMobil ), the largest company headquartered in the United Kingdom, the second-largest company headquartered in Europe (after Volkswagen ), and the 15th largest company in the world. Until its unification in 2005 as Royal Dutch Shell plc ,

11484-692: The last epoch of the Jurassic, the Tithonian, continued into the Berriasian, the first age of the Cretaceous. The North Atlantic seaway opened and enabled the flow of cool water from the Boreal Ocean into the Tethys. There is evidence that snowfalls were common in the higher latitudes during this age, and the tropics became wetter than during the Triassic and Jurassic. Glaciation was restricted to high- latitude mountains, though seasonal snow may have existed farther from

11616-564: The late Valanginian (~ 134 million years ago) found in Israel and Italy, initially at low abundance. Molecular clock estimates conflict with fossil estimates, suggesting the diversification of crown-group angiosperms during the Late Triassic or the Jurassic, but such estimates are difficult to reconcile with the heavily sampled pollen record and the distinctive tricolpate to tricolporoidate (triple grooved) pollen of eudicot angiosperms. Among

11748-465: The late Cretaceous, and all else that depended on them suffered, as well. Herbivorous animals, which depended on plants and plankton as their food, died out as their food sources became scarce; consequently, the top predators , such as Tyrannosaurus rex , also perished. Yet only three major groups of tetrapods disappeared completely; the nonavian dinosaurs , the plesiosaurs and the pterosaurs . The other Cretaceous groups that did not survive into

11880-563: The latest Albian. Approximately 94 Ma, the Cenomanian-Turonian Thermal Maximum occurred, with this hyperthermal being the most extreme hothouse interval of the Cretaceous and being associated with a sea level highstand. Temperatures cooled down slightly over the next few million years, but then another thermal maximum, the Coniacian Thermal Maximum, happened, with this thermal event being dated to around 87 Ma. Atmospheric CO 2 levels may have varied by thousands of ppm throughout

12012-510: The legal name) was a British company, founded in 1897 by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted , and his brother Samuel Samuel . Their father had owned an antique company in Houndsditch , London, which expanded in 1833 to import and sell seashells, after which the company "Shell" took its name. For various reasons, the new firm operated as a dual-listed company , whereby the merging companies maintained their legal existence but operated as

12144-674: The l’Arboudeyesse Thermal Event (ATE) a million years later. Following these two hyperthermals was the Amadeus Thermal Maximum around 106 Ma, during the middle Albian. Then, around a million years after that, occurred the Petite Verol Thermal Event (PVTE). Afterwards, around 102.5 Ma, the Event 6 Thermal Event (EV6) took place; this event was itself followed by the Breistroffer Thermal Maximum around 101 Ma, during

12276-508: The middle Cretaceous, becoming the dominant group of land plants by the end of the period, coincident with the decline of previously dominant groups such as conifers. The oldest known fossils of grasses are from the Albian , with the family having diversified into modern groups by the end of the Cretaceous. The oldest large angiosperm trees are known from the Turonian (c. 90 Mya) of New Jersey, with

12408-679: The middle of the Cretaceous. During the Early Cretaceous, flowering plants appeared and began to rapidly diversify, becoming the dominant group of plants across the Earth by the end of the Cretaceous, coincident with the decline and extinction of previously widespread gymnosperm groups. The Cretaceous (along with the Mesozoic) ended with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event , a large mass extinction in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs , and large marine reptiles , died out, widely thought to have been caused by

12540-604: The more productive, offshore Maui gas field began producing in 1979. British Petroleum sold its ownership of Kapuni to Royal Dutch/Shell and Todd Energy in 1991, and Todd Energy became the field's sole owner in 2017. As of 2011 Kapuni produces nearly 18 PJ/year of natural gas and 2.25 PJ/year of oil. This accounts for 9.9% of New Zealand's natural gas production and 2.3% of New Zealand's oil production. As production has naturally decreased over time, Kapuni's ownership has implemented hydraulic fracturing , water shutoffs, gas re-injections and other supplemental production techniques since

12672-408: The most promising candidates for fixing the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary. In particular, the first appearance Calpionella alpina , coinciding with the base of the eponymous Alpina subzone, has been proposed as the definition of the base of the Cretaceous. The working definition for the boundary has often been placed as the first appearance of the ammonite Strambergella jacobi , formerly placed in

12804-432: The northern portion of the Kapuni Anticline, these two dominant fault trends become nearly orthogonal to one another. This is a result of fault block rotation that produced necessary extension along the anticline's younger units during fold growth. Kapuni's gas is CO 2 -rich, containing approximately 40-45 mol% CO 2 . This has facilitated significant diagenesis and the development of secondary porosity, especially in

12936-824: The oceans. Extinction was more severe among animals living in the water column than among animals living on or in the seafloor. Animals in the water column are almost entirely dependent on primary production from living phytoplankton, while animals living on or in the ocean floor feed on detritus or can switch to detritus feeding. The largest air-breathing survivors of the event, crocodilians and champsosaurs , were semiaquatic and had access to detritus. Modern crocodilians can live as scavengers and can survive for months without food and go into hibernation when conditions are unfavorable, and their young are small, grow slowly, and feed largely on invertebrates and dead organisms or fragments of organisms for their first few years. These characteristics have been linked to crocodilian survival at

13068-581: The oldest records of Angiosperm macrofossils are Montsechia from the Barremian aged Las Hoyas beds of Spain and Archaefructus from the Barremian-Aptian boundary Yixian Formation in China. Tricolpate pollen distinctive of eudicots first appears in the Late Barremian, while the earliest remains of monocots are known from the Aptian. Flowering plants underwent a rapid radiation beginning during

13200-525: The period 1988–2015. Shell was formed in April 1907 through the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company of the Netherlands and The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company of the United Kingdom. The combined company rapidly became the leading competitor of the American Standard Oil and by 1920 Shell was the largest producer of oil in the world. Shell first entered the chemicals industry in 1929. Shell

13332-452: The poles. Many of the dominant taxonomic groups present in modern times can be ultimately traced back to origins in the Cretaceous. During this time, new groups of mammals and birds appeared, including the earliest relatives of placentals & marsupials ( Eutheria and Metatheria respectively), and the earliest crown group birds. Acanthomorph fish, the most diverse group of modern vertebrates, appeared in aquatic habitats around

13464-508: The poles. After the end of the first age, however, temperatures began to increase again, with a number of thermal excursions, such as the middle Valanginian Weissert Thermal Excursion (WTX), which was caused by the Paraná-Etendeka Large Igneous Province's activity. It was followed by the middle Hauterivian Faraoni Thermal Excursion (FTX) and the early Barremian Hauptblatterton Thermal Event (HTE). The HTE marked

13596-412: The principal food of mosasaurs , a group of giant marine lizards related to snakes that became extinct at the boundary. Omnivores , insectivores , and carrion -eaters survived the extinction event, perhaps because of the increased availability of their food sources. At the end of the Cretaceous, there seem to have been no purely herbivorous or carnivorous mammals . Mammals and birds that survived

13728-504: The profits from 2021, and the highest profit in its entire history. In November 2024, Shell won a case in the Hague court of appeal against Friends of the Earth which would have required Shell to cut its carbon emissions by 45%, in line with the Paris climate accords . The key trends of Shell are (as at the financial year ending 31 December): On 4 August 2005, the board of directors announced

13860-495: The proposed plant's site. In January 2017, Shell agreed to sell £2.46bn worth of North Sea assets to oil exploration firm Chrysaor. In 2017, Shell sold its oil sands assets to Canadian Natural Resources in exchange of approximately 8.8% stake in that company. In May 2017, it was reported that Shell plans to sell its shares in Canadian Natural Resources fully exiting the oil sands business. On 5 November 2017,

13992-547: The punctuation mark at the end of a progressive decline in biodiversity during the Maastrichtian age. The result was the extinction of three-quarters of Earth's plant and animal species. The impact created the sharp break known as the K–Pg boundary (formerly known as the K–T boundary). Earth's biodiversity required substantial time to recover from this event, despite the probable existence of an abundance of vacant ecological niches . Despite

14124-405: The revelation that Shell had been overstating its oil reserves , it was announced that the Shell Group would move to a single capital structure, creating a new parent company to be named Royal Dutch Shell plc, with its primary listing on the LSE, a secondary listing on Euronext Amsterdam , its headquarters and tax residency in The Hague , Netherlands and its registered office in London. The company

14256-744: The rise of angiosperms, during the Jurassic and the Early Cretaceous, the higher flora was dominated by gymnosperm groups, including cycads , conifers , ginkgophytes , gnetophytes and close relatives, as well as the extinct Bennettitales . Other groups of plants included pteridosperms or "seed ferns", a collective term that refers to disparate groups of extinct seed plants with fern-like foliage, including groups such as Corystospermaceae and Caytoniales . The exact origins of angiosperms are uncertain, although molecular evidence suggests that they are not closely related to any living group of gymnosperms. The earliest widely accepted evidence of flowering plants are monosulcate (single-grooved) pollen grains from

14388-426: The same period the previous year. On 30 September 2020, the company said that it would cut up to 9,000 jobs as a result of the economic effects caused by the pandemic and announced a "broad restructuring". In December 2020, Shell forecast another write-down of $ 3.5-4.5 billion for the fourth quarter due to lower oil prices, following $ 16.8 billion of impairment in the second quarter. In February 2021, Shell announced

14520-447: The severity of the K-Pg extinction event, there were significant variations in the rate of extinction between and within different clades . Species that depended on photosynthesis declined or became extinct as atmospheric particles blocked solar energy . As is the case today, photosynthesizing organisms, such as phytoplankton and land plants , formed the primary part of the food chain in

14652-538: The single legal entity which exists today. On 15 November 2021, Royal Dutch Shell plc announced plans to change its name to Shell plc. Shell is organised into four major business groupings: Shell's primary business is the management of a vertically integrated oil company. The development of technical and commercial expertise in all stages of this vertical integration, from the initial search for oil (exploration) through its harvesting (production), transportation, refining and finally trading and marketing established

14784-426: The spill, but an Argentine court ruled in 2002 that the corporation was responsible. In 2002, Shell acquired Pennzoil-Quaker State through its American division for $ 22 USD per share, or about $ 1.8 billion USD. Through its acquisition of Pennzoil, Shell became a descendant of Standard Oil . With its acquisition, Shell inherited multiple auto part brands including Jiffy Lube , Rain-X , and Fix-a-Flat . The company

14916-572: The state owned CAMMESA (Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico). On 30 April 2020, Shell announced that it would cut its dividend for the first time since the Second World War , due to the oil price collapse following the reduction in oil demand during the COVID-19 pandemic . Shell stated that their net income adjusted for the cost of supply dropped to US$ 2.9 billion in three months to 31 March. This compared with US$ 5.3 billion in

15048-422: The strong regionality of most biostratigraphic markers, and the lack of any chemostratigraphic events, such as isotope excursions (large sudden changes in ratios of isotopes ) that could be used to define or correlate a boundary. Calpionellids , an enigmatic group of planktonic protists with urn-shaped calcitic tests briefly abundant during the latest Jurassic to earliest Cretaceous, have been suggested as

15180-568: The talks. In 1929, Shell Chemicals was founded. By the end of the 1920s, Shell was the world's leading oil company, producing 11 percent of the world's crude oil supply and owning 10 percent of its tanker tonnage. During the Spanish Civil War the company sold oil to the Nationalist side of Francisco Franco . Located in the north bank of the River Thames in London, Shell Mex House

15312-611: The terrestrial fauna of the late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation . Other important Cretaceous exposures occur in Europe (e.g., the Weald ) and China (the Yixian Formation ). In the area that is now India, massive lava beds called the Deccan Traps were erupted in the very late Cretaceous and early Paleocene. Palynological evidence indicates the Cretaceous climate had three broad phases:

15444-483: The trunk having a preserved diameter of 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) and an estimated height of 50 metres (160 ft). During the Cretaceous, ferns in the order Polypodiales , which make up 80% of living fern species, would also begin to diversify. On land, mammals were generally small sized, but a very relevant component of the fauna , with cimolodont multituberculates outnumbering dinosaurs in some sites. Neither true marsupials nor placentals existed until

15576-751: The ultimate end of the Tithonian-early Barremian Cool Interval (TEBCI). During this interval, precession was the dominant orbital driver of environmental changes in the Vocontian Basin. For much of the TEBCI, northern Gondwana experienced a monsoonal climate. A shallow thermocline existed in the mid-latitude Tethys. The TEBCI was followed by the Barremian-Aptian Warm Interval (BAWI). This hot climatic interval coincides with Manihiki and Ontong Java Plateau volcanism and with

15708-780: The value of World War II military production contracts. The 1930s saw Shell's Mexican assets seized by the local government. After the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in 1940, the head office of the Dutch companies was moved to Curaçao . In 1945, Shell's Danish headquarters in Copenhagen , at the time being used by the Gestapo , was bombed by Royal Air Force De Havilland Mosquitoes in Operation Carthage . In 1937, Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), 23.75 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell plc, signed an oil concession agreement with

15840-628: The very end, but a variety of non-marsupial metatherians and non-placental eutherians had already begun to diversify greatly, ranging as carnivores ( Deltatheroida ), aquatic foragers ( Stagodontidae ) and herbivores ( Schowalteria , Zhelestidae ). Various "archaic" groups like eutriconodonts were common in the Early Cretaceous, but by the Late Cretaceous northern mammalian faunas were dominated by multituberculates and therians , with dryolestoids dominating South America . The apex predators were archosaurian reptiles , especially dinosaurs , which were at their most diverse stage. Avians such as

15972-455: Was Peter Voser who became CEO of Shell on 1 July 2009. Following a career at the corporation, in locations such as Australia and Africa, Ann Pickard was appointed as the executive vice president of the Arctic at Royal Dutch Shell, a role that was publicized in an interview with McKinsey & Company in June 2014. In January 2023, Wael Sawan succeeded Ben van Beurden as CEO. The name Shell

16104-432: Was a period with a relatively warm climate , resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas . These oceans and seas were populated with now- extinct marine reptiles , ammonites , and rudists , while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. The world was largely ice-free, although there is some evidence of brief periods of glaciation during the cooler first half, and forests extended to

16236-547: Was already incorporated in 2002 as Forthdeal Limited , a shelf corporation incorporated by Swift Incorporations Limited and Instant Companies Limited, both based in Bristol. The unification was completed on 20 July 2005 and the original owners delisted their companies from the respective exchanges. On 20 July 2005, the Shell Transport & Trading Company plc was delisted from the LSE, whereas, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company from

16368-532: Was also an important interval in the evolution of bioerosion , the production of borings and scrapings in rocks, hardgrounds and shells. Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London , England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and

16500-467: Was awarded to a consortium led by ExxonMobil (60%) and included Shell (15%). 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 March 2010, Shell announced the sale of some of its assets, including its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business, to meet

16632-482: Was completed in 1931, and was the head office for Shell's marketing activity worldwide. In 1932, partly in response to the difficult economic conditions of the Great Depression , Shell-Mex merged its UK marketing operations with those of BP (British Petroleum) to create Shell-Mex & BP , a company that traded until the brands separated in 1975. Royal Dutch Company ranked 79th among United States corporations in

16764-823: Was created in April 1907 through the amalgamation of two rival companies: the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company ( Dutch : Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij ) of the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited of the United Kingdom . It was a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with Standard Oil . The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company was a Dutch company founded in 1890 to develop an oilfield in Pangkalan Brandan , North Sumatra , and initially led by August Kessler , Hugo Loudon, and Henri Deterding . The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company (the quotation marks were part of

16896-630: Was followed by the Aptian-Albian Cold Snap (AACS) that began about 118 Ma. A short, relatively minor ice age may have occurred during this so-called "cold snap", as evidenced by glacial dropstones in the western parts of the Tethys Ocean and the expansion of calcareous nannofossils that dwelt in cold water into lower latitudes. The AACS is associated with an arid period in the Iberian Peninsula . Temperatures increased drastically after

17028-483: Was notably late in its acquisition as seen by journalists, with Shell seen as streamlining its assets around the same time of other major mergers and acquisitions in the industry, such as BP 's purchase of Amoco and the merger of Exxon and Mobil . In 2004, Shell overstated its oil reserves, resulting in loss of confidence in the group, a £17 million fine by the Financial Services Authority and

17160-482: Was one of the " Seven Sisters " which dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. In 1964, Shell was a partner in the world's first commercial sea transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In 1970, Shell acquired the mining company Billiton , which it subsequently sold in 1994 and now forms part of BHP . In recent decades gas has become an increasingly important part of Shell's business and Shell acquired BG Group in 2016. Shell

17292-796: Was registered in the Companies House on 21 January 2022. In December 2021, Shell pulled out of the Cambo oil field , off the Shetland Islands, claiming that "the economic case for investment in this project is not strong enough at this time, as well as having the potential for delays". The proposed oilfield had been the subject of intense campaigning by environmentalists in the run-up to the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021. On 4 March 2022, during

17424-490: Was subsequently criticised by the European Commission and five European Union members after deciding to leave part of its decommissioned oil rigs standing in the North Sea. Shell argued that removing them would be too costly and risky. Germany said that the estimated 11,000 tonnes of raw oil and toxins remaining in the rigs would eventually seep into the sea, and called it a 'ticking timebomb'. On 15 January 1999, off

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