Market cap

* For banks, enterprise value is substituted with market cap. Source: Bloomberg Finance L.P.

Performance of the brand

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies engaged worldwide in the principal aspects of the oil and gas industry, as well as chemicals and other energy-related businesses. It is headquartered in the Hague, The Netherlands and the CEO is Peter Voser. The parent company of the Shell group is Royal Dutch Shell plc, which is incorporated in England and Wales and employs 101,000 worldwide.

Shell is one of the oldest and most revered oil companies in the world. They have benefitted somewhat from the misfortune of BP in 2010 following the gulf oil disaster and troubled Russian deals more recently. Oil price rises have buoyed earnings and increased profit but the company must be wary of damage to the brand from compensation claims from its own associations with pollution, even if these are currently not widely publicised.

 

Positive Aspects

60% increase in profits on last year

Announced a 60% increase in first quarter earnings for 2012, benefitting from higher oil prices.

Subsequently, in the second quarter, profits grew 77%

Net profit rose to $8.78 billion, up from $5.48 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Revenues rose 28% to $110 billion.

While BP attempts to rebuild itself after the Gulf of Mexico disaster and posted underlying quarterly profit up just 13% to $5.6 billion, Shell made more than $88 million a day during the same period.

Negative Aspects

There has been a leak at one of Shell’s North Sea wells at the Gannet A platform

This spill, now under control, has been the worst leak in British waters for a decade. Scottish government authorities are conducting an inquiry into the source of the leak and will decide whether Shell is liable to pay for the government clean-up operation.

The UK government has been accused by Shell and others of a £10billion ‘tax raid’ on North Sea operators

As a consequence, Shell has suggested that despite having submitted a field-development plan to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, it will suspend development of the North Sea ‘Fram’ field, which holds hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, while it assesses the tax impact of the government’s plan.

Shell operates Fram, which contains an estimated 300 million barrels of oil, in a joint venture with Esso. It was discovered in 1969 but Shell only realised its full potential 40 years later after drilling a fresh, exploratory well.

May face compensation claims, following an appeal by community groups in London’s High Court, for polluting areas of the Niger delta

In August 2011 the Shell Petroleum Development Company accepted liability for two spills in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta in 2008 and 2009, agreeing to pay compensation to the Bodo fishing community. There have been hundreds of other spills in the region and this case may set a precedent for more claims. Shell potentially has more to lose than other oil companies, as it has been heavily involved in the Niger Delta for decades, though the majority of spills may actually the result of deliberate sabotage by separatist rebels.

  

League tables

Shell appears in the following brand league tables:

Rank 19 in the Global 500 2012.
Rank 1 in the Netherlands 50 2012.
Rank 30 in the Global 500 2011.
Rank 1 in the Netherlands 50 2011.
Rank 5 in the UK Top 50 2011.
Rank 30 in the Global 500 2011.
Rank 27 in the Global 500 2010.
Rank 5 in the UK Top 50 2010.
Rank 30 in the Global 500 2009.
Rank 34 in the Global 500 2008.
Rank 34 in the Global 250 2007.