Abstract
The Royal Dutch Shell is one of the most renowned companies in the energy industry. It is engaged in oil and gas exploration and production, transportation and marketing of natural gas and electricity, and marketing and shipping of oil products and chemicals. Shell is also oriented toward the renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and hydrogen. This company whose the headquarters is in the Netherlands has extensive operations in more than 90 countries around the world and employs about 101,000 people. It produces around 3.2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and is world's largest fuel retail network (45,000 services stations).
Shell core competencies are divided between the upstream and downstream segment. The upstream part refers to the ways we find and extract crude oil, natural gas and oil sands while the downstream refers to the ways we transform them into products. Shell invest a lot in the exploration and production as well as in the exploration and production research and development (R&D) in order to develop new technology to enhance the cost-efficiency and performance of the company. There is also a third segment called the non-operating corporate segment, which represents the functional activities supporting the whole group. This segment consists of the following functional activities: holdings and treasury, headquarters and central functions, and Shell insurance operations.
The major source of revenue still comes from the upstream segment with $20.2 billion earnings in the exploration and production, $5.3 billion earnings in gas and power and $941 million in oil sands (2009). In the downstream segment the oil products bring 446 million USD while the chemicals record a loss of $405 million (2009). The corporate segment recorded a loss of $69 million (2009).
