Origins
In 1833 Marcus Samuel was determined to expand his business as a shopkeeper outside of his city, London. Initially he sold antiques but now he wanted to start trading oriental shells. When the business passed to his sons he started trading commodities such as wheat and sugar worldwide. it was only after one of his trips to Japan that Marcus Samuel junior decided to start exporting oil, in order to do this new transportation technologies had to be invented since oil has a high leakage risk and the tanks take up a lot of space. To solve this Marcus and Sam commissioned a fleet of steamers to carry oil in bulk, thanks to this the cost of oil was substantially cut. In 1897 the company was renamed the Shell Transport and Trading Company. In 1907 the two brother’s decided to merge their company with the Royal Dutch Petroleum that was one of their biggest competitors in order to protect themselves from the bigger threat of the leading company in the market, the Standard Oil.
Early 20th century …show more content…
This brought to a period of growth and prosperity for the company. By the end of the 1920s Shell became the world’s leading oil company and therefore, Shell Chemicals was founded. With the beginning of the Depression in the 1930s Shell was forced to reduce its workforce and impose financial cuts. Nevertheless this did not discourage the company since the decade saw great progress in chemicals and fuel research. Political instability in the 1930s caused many problems to the business, in Venezuela they had to concede generous terms to the government and the rise of the Nazis in Europe was a huge threat for Dutch
In 1833 Marcus Samuel was determined to expand his business as a shopkeeper outside of his city, London. Initially he sold antiques but now he wanted to start trading oriental shells. When the business passed to his sons he started trading commodities such as wheat and sugar worldwide. it was only after one of his trips to Japan that Marcus Samuel junior decided to start exporting oil, in order to do this new transportation technologies had to be invented since oil has a high leakage risk and the tanks take up a lot of space. To solve this Marcus and Sam commissioned a fleet of steamers to carry oil in bulk, thanks to this the cost of oil was substantially cut. In 1897 the company was renamed the Shell Transport and Trading Company. In 1907 the two brother’s decided to merge their company with the Royal Dutch Petroleum that was one of their biggest competitors in order to protect themselves from the bigger threat of the leading company in the market, the Standard Oil.
Early 20th century …show more content…
This brought to a period of growth and prosperity for the company. By the end of the 1920s Shell became the world’s leading oil company and therefore, Shell Chemicals was founded. With the beginning of the Depression in the 1930s Shell was forced to reduce its workforce and impose financial cuts. Nevertheless this did not discourage the company since the decade saw great progress in chemicals and fuel research. Political instability in the 1930s caused many problems to the business, in Venezuela they had to concede generous terms to the government and the rise of the Nazis in Europe was a huge threat for Dutch