Royal Dutch Shell

The name Shell is linked to the Shell Transport and Trading Company.
In 1833, the founder's father, also Marcus Samuel, founded an import business to sell seashells to London collectors. When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea area in 1892, the younger Samuel realized there was potential in exporting lamp oil from the region and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker, the Murex (Latin for 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 brand is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world. Known as the "pecten" after the sea shell Pecten maximus (the giant scallop), on which its design is based, the current version of the brand was designed by Raymond Loewy and introduced in 1971. 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 the state of California which had strong connections with Spain.

The slash was removed from the name "Royal Dutch/Shell" in 2004, concurrent with moves to merge the two legally separate companies (Royal Dutch and Shell) to the single legal entity which exists today.

Royal Dutch Shell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Forbes Global 2000 in 2009 ranked Shell the second-largest company in the world, behind General Electric. In 2007, Fortune magazine ranked Shell as the third-largest corporation in the world, behind Wal-Mart and ExxonMobil.
Shell operates in over 140 countries. In the United States, its Shell Oil Company subsidiary, headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States, is one of Shell's largest businesses.
 
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