Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
-based wholly owned subsidiary of
Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation "
oil major
Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's six or seven largest publicly traded and investor-owned oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors. The term, particularly in the United States, emphasizes their economic power and influence ...
" which is amongst the largest
oil companies
The following is a list of notable companies in the petroleum industry that are engaged in petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is fo ...
in the world. Approximately 18,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. Its U.S. headquarters are in
Houston, Texas. Shell USA, including its consolidated companies and its share in equity companies, is one of America's largest oil and natural gas producers, natural gas marketers, gasoline marketers and
petrochemical
Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable ...
manufacturers.
History
In 1997, Shell and
Texaco entered into two refining/marketing joint ventures. One combined their Midwestern and Western operations and was known as Equilon. The other, known as
Motiva Enterprises
Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is an American company that operates as a fully-owned affiliate of Saudi Aramco. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, it had a revenue of $500 Million . Motiva operates as a distributor of Shell and 76 branded gasolin ...
, combined the Eastern and Gulf Coast operations of Shell Oil and Star Enterprise, itself a joint venture between
Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
and Texaco.
After Texaco merged with
Chevron in 2001, Shell purchased Texaco's shares in the joint ventures.
In 2002, Shell began converting these Texaco stations to the Shell brand, a process that was to be completed by June 2004 and was called "the largest retail re-branding initiative in American business history". In the year 2016, Shell Nederland Raffinaderij BV (Shell
Pernis) said that it has started a new aromatics unit at the large Pernis refinery in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
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, established_title = Before independence
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.
In recent years The Shell Oil Company's Midstream, and Downstream, in particular, have become limited to petroleum, and chemical products. This has come as a result of
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 the New ...
breaking off its
Natural Gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon ...
and power businesses into a new segment named Integrated Gas. The Shell Oil Company's former Natural Gas, and energy divisions are now
Shell Energy North America, a closely integrated, but a distinctive entity that runs across North America and is headquartered out of Houston.
Activities
Shell is the market leader through approximately 14,000 Shell-branded gas stations in the U.S. which also serve as Shell's most visible public presence, and comes closest to serving all 50 states, lacking a presence only in
Montana
Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...
. At its gas stations Shell provides
diesel fuel
Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and ...
,
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic ...
and
LPG. Shell Oil Company was a 50/50 partner with the
Saudi Arabian government-owned oil company
Saudi Aramco
Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
in
Motiva Enterprises
Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is an American company that operates as a fully-owned affiliate of Saudi Aramco. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, it had a revenue of $500 Million . Motiva operates as a distributor of Shell and 76 branded gasolin ...
, a refining and marketing joint venture which owns and operates three oil refineries on the
Gulf Coast of the United States. However, Shell is currently divesting its interest in Motiva.
Shell products include oils, fuels, and car services as well as exploration, production, and refining of petroleum products.
The Shell Oil Refinery in
Martinez, California
Martinez ( Spanish: ''Martínez'') is a city and the county seat of Contra Costa County, California, United States, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Located on the southern shore of the Carquinez Strait, the city's popu ...
, the first Shell refinery in the United States, supplies Shell and
Texaco stations in the West and Midwest.
Shell gasoline previously included the RU2000 and SU2000 lines (later there was a SU2000E) but they have been superseded by the
V-Power line.
Relationship with Royal Dutch Shell
Until the mid-1980s Shell's business in the United States was substantially independent. Limited direct involvement from the main office in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and having its stock "Shell Oil" traded on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...
were factors. However, in 1984, Royal Dutch 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 completed the buyout for a sum of $5.7 billion.
Despite the acquisition, however, Shell Oil remained a fairly independent business. This was due in part to complex legal reasons as Royal Dutch Shell feared that there could be onerous
liability problems if a closer control of Shell Oil's affairs was exercised by the "parent company". One consequence of this independence was that the Shell logo used in the U.S. was slightly different from that used in the rest of the world. In the 1980s Shell Oil's independence began to gradually erode as the "parent company" took a more hands-on approach in running the business. The logo used in the United States is the same as that used elsewhere since June 1, 1998.
In January 2018, Royal Dutch Shell acquired a 44% interest in solar energy company Silicon Ranch, run by
CEO Matt Kisber. The takeover was part of the global New Energies project, with the aim of bringing solar renewable options to US customers. The company paid up to an estimated $217 million to take over from former minority shareholders
Partners Group.
In October 2018, the company installed a 285-foot-high quench tower at the Shell Chemical Appalachia L.L.C. Pittsburgh plant, which transfers heat absorbed by the water circulation process to use across other areas of the site.
Shell has companies in North, South and Central America: in Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, the U.S. and Venezuela. Shell also has companies in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Subsidiaries
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Aera Energy —joint venture with
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November ...
operating in California.
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Motiva Enterprises
Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is an American company that operates as a fully-owned affiliate of Saudi Aramco. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, it had a revenue of $500 Million . Motiva operates as a distributor of Shell and 76 branded gasolin ...
—joint venture with
Saudi Refining. Currently being divested, with the second quarter of 2017 being the official date.
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Shell Development Emeryville
The Emeryville Research Center of Shell Development Company in Emeryville, California was a major research facility of Shell Oil Company in the United States from 1928 until 1972, when Shell Development relocated to Houston, Texas."Research in ...
—research facility that operated from 1928 to 1966 in California.
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Pennzoil Quaker State
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Jiffy Lube
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Deer Park
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Limejump
*Greenlots -
charging station
A charging station, also known as a charge point or electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE), is a piece of equipment that supplies electrical power for charging plug-in electric vehicles (including electric cars, electric trucks, electric ...
s and
systems provider for others like
Electrify America
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Amilcar Petroleum Operations (APO)
The Amilcar was a French automobile manufactured from 1921 to 1940.
History
Foundation and location
Amilcar was founded in July 1921 by Joseph Lamy and Emile Akar. The name "Amilcar" was an imperfect anagram of the partners' names. The b ...
— a joint venture with the state-owned petroleum company in Tunisia
Entreprise Tunisienne d'Activités Pétrolières
Entreprise Tunisienne d'Activités Pétrolières (ETAP) is a state-owned industrial and commercial company in Tunisia directly in charge of the petroleum sector as well as the state's partnerships with foreign exploration and production operators ...
created on July 1, 2014.
Legal issues
Environmental
Shell Puget Sound Refinery,
Anacortes, Washington
Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.[Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...]
. , it was listed as "high priority violator" since 2008.
In 2008, a lawsuit was filed against Shell Oil Company for alleged Clean Air Act violation. Shell
Deer Park facility, 20 miles east of Houston, was the nation's eighth-largest oil refinery and one of the world's largest petrochemical producers. The facility was also the second-largest source of air pollution in
Harris County, which ranked among the lowest in the nation in several measures of air quality.
According to Sierra Club and Environment Texas, analysis of Shell's reports to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, air pollutants released at Deer Park since 2003 exceeded the EPA's emissions limits.
Will Oremus from Slate magazine states, "The company's business depends on being able to anticipate and respond quickly to seismic shifts in the energy market. So it employs a team of big-thinking futurists, called scenario planners, to keep it a step ahead. In 2008 the company released a fresh pair of scenarios for how the world might respond to climate change over the coming decades. Both were predicated on what the company called 'three hard truths': that global energy demand is rising, that the supply of conventional energy will not be able to keep up, and that climate change is both real and dangerous."
Polybutylene lawsuit
Between 1978 and 1995, Shell Oil produced
polybutylene pipes, which corrode when exposed to chlorine. A
class action
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...
lawsuit was filed in 1995 against Shell Oil when the polybutylene pipes caused flooding in many households in the U.S. and Canada.
The settlement required Shell Oil to pay for the re-installation of piping for millions of houses for claims filed through May 2009.
Campaign violations
About 6,000 Shell workers and contractors were instructed to attend a Trump speech held on August 13, 2019, or take the day off without pay, losing about $700 from overtime and per diem. During his address, Trump called out specific union leaders to declare their voting loyalty. Many of the union leaders present were not consulted prior to the event and memos sent to contractor management forbade any protest. Federal law prohibits a corporation from making a contribution.
See also
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Pennsylvania Shell ethylene cracker plant
The Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex is an under-construction ethylene Cracking (chemistry), cracker chemical plant, plant located in Potter Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, Potter Township, Pennsylvania, United States, owned and o ...
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Petroleum geology
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Fred Meissner
Fred F. Meissner (November 10, 1931 – September 18, 2007) was an American geologist and engineer who contributed to the fields of geology, geophysics, engineering, petroleum engineering, geochemistry, mineralogy, physics, mining, economic g ...
, Shell Laboratories, Petroleum Explorationist, Professor Colorado School of Mines
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M. King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolog ...
, Shell Laboratories, Petroleum Geologist, created the
Hubbert peak theory model of
oil depletion
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Motiva Enterprises
Motiva Enterprises, LLC, is an American company that operates as a fully-owned affiliate of Saudi Aramco. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, it had a revenue of $500 Million . Motiva operates as a distributor of Shell and 76 branded gasolin ...
*
Geophysics
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Shell plc subsidiaries
Shell
Oil companies of the United States
Retail companies established in 1912
Energy companies established in 1912
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1912
Companies based in Houston
Gas stations in the United States
American subsidiaries of foreign companies
1912 establishments in Texas
Oil and gas companies of Turkey
American companies established in 1912