The Restructuring of Royal Dutch Shell Research Paper

The Restructuring of Royal Dutch Shell - Research Paper Example This paper seeks to discuss and analyze these developments, as well as an attempt to recommend further actions that Shell management could take. Royal Dutch Shell PLC is a multinational joint venture corporation comprising two founding companies, Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. of The Hague, Netherlands., and Shell Transport and Trading Co., PLC, of London. Although starting as rivals, the two companies merged in 1907 as Royal Dutch/Shell Group, which acquired producing concerns in the Middle East, the Americas, and Eastern Europe, including Romania and Russia. It is engaged mainly in oil and natural gas. At present its five business segments are as follows: 1) exploration and production (E&P), an upstream activity that explores, recovers, and produces oil and natural gas worldwide; 2) gas and power, where it liquefies and transports natural gas to customers, as well as turns natural gas into cleaner-burning synthetic fuels; 3) oil sands, where bitumen is extracted and converted into synthetic crude oils; 4) oil products where a range of petroleum-based products are sold for domestic, transportation and industrial use; and 5) chem icals, which produces petrochemicals for industrial use. (Company report). Renewables were recently added to its range of business activities. Complexity. The organizational structure of Royal Dutch Shell prior to 1995 was unique in its complexity: It was a joint venture that had been in existence for over a century, at the apex of which was a Committee of Managing Directors that provided a link between them. From the viewpoint of ownership and control, the CMD exercised what it referred to as governance responsibilities. The Group was managed on a day-to-day basis by officers who had been given executive responsibilities. Coordination and control were vested in the CMD, composed of 3 members from Royal Dutch Petroleum and 2 members from the  Shell Transport and Trading. The chairmanship was rotated between the two counterparts.