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Shell Hell – Let’s Talk about the Little Guy

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Many South Africans are advocating a boycott of Shell petrol stations countrywide in response to Shell’s commissioning of unwanted Seismic Surveys along our East Coast.

The first reaction to this proposal is from affected Shell dealers who are telling people to please not target the small business owners and their staff.

Whilst any right thinking person will have sympathy with that sentiment another side of the coin does exist:

  • Shell has not covered themselves in glory for the past few decades and any SME wanting to enter into a franchise agreement with Shell, after a simple due diligence Google exercise, would be well aware of just how precarious such a deal would be.
  • Merely relying on sympathy to NOT boycott Shell Service Stations is not good business practice – owners of such franchises would score major points by supporting the protestors in some small way.
  • ‘Planet, People, Profit’ is the watchword and the plea falls on deaf ears as it only appeals to one part of the three legged approach – People.
  • If you associate with thieves and killers then you need to realise that you will be tarred with the same brush.
  • There are many other oil companies that would jump at changing brands – may I suggest that existing Shell Franchise owners do the math and explore that option?

Many other businesses owned by Shell can also be targeted – unfortunately for the Service (Petrol) Stations they are the most visible forward facing part of the business under Royal Dutch Shell…

Shell is organised into four major business groupings:

  1. Upstream – manages the upstream business. It searches for and recovers crude oil and natural gas and operates the upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver oil and gas to the market. Its activities are organised primarily within geographic units, although there are some activities that are managed across the business or provided through support units.
  2. Integrated Gas and New Energies – manages to liquefy natural gas, converting gas to liquids and low-carbon opportunities.
  3. Downstream – manages Shell’s manufacturing, distribution, and marketing activities for oil products and chemicals. Manufacturing and supply include refinery, supply, and shipping of crude oil.
  4. Projects and technology – manages the delivery of Shell’s major projects, provides technical services and technology capability covering both upstream and downstream activities. It is also responsible for providing functional leadership across Shell in the areas of health, safety and environment, and contracting and procurement.

Shell South Africa is mainly involved in the Retail and Commercial Fuels, Lubricants and Oils, Chemicals, Manufacturing and Upstream Exploration.

Shell have a nationwide Retail network of service stations, offering customers a variety of fuels products, as well as convenience shopping.

The Commercial Fuels and Lubricants division sells diesel, lubricants, illuminating paraffin, bitumen and heavy furnace fuels directly to end users in the transport, construction, manufacturing, mining, marine, agriculture and general consumer markets.

In the Manufacturing area, the Sapref refinery, jointly owned by Shell and BP, is one of the largest refineries in Africa.

In Upstream Exploration, Shell South Africa Upstream B.V. holds an exploration right in the Orange Basin Deep Water area, off the country’s west coast and has applications for shale gas exploration rights in the Karoo, in central South Africa.

Other Shell interests in South Africa include Aviation, Chemicals and LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas).

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s subsidiaries are distributed across the world with 49.3% of the total located in Western Europe, the highest for any region. Some 202 of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s subsidiaries are located in the UK, while the Netherlands was the second most popular destination with 174.

Top 10 Owners of Royal Dutch Shell PLC (december 2021):

  1. Fisher Asset Management LLC – 0.89%
  2. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management – 0.55%
  3. Fidelity Management & Research Co. – 0.42%
  4. Franklin Advisers, Inc. – 0.39%
  5. Wellington Management Co. LLP – 0.31%
  6. Lord, Abbett & Co. LLC – 0.26%
  7. Pzena Investment Management LLC – 0.20%
  8. Capital Research & Management Co. – 0.20%
  9. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC – 0.19%
  10. Two Sigma Investments LP – 0.18%
Boycott Shell
Boycott Shell, Save our Marine Life

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.