A History of Royal Dutch Shell

Jan Luiten van Zanden, Stephen Howarth, Joost Jonker and Keetie Sluijterman,
A History of Royal Dutch Shell,
Boom Publishers/Oxford University Press, 2007. - 4 volumes

Appendix: Statistical Tables 1880-2000

1 - Oil production
2 - Share prices, market capitalization and other financial data
3 - Product sales and natural gas sales
4 - Employment

In this appendix we present the data collected for analysing the development of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in comparative perspective. We have concentrated on data available for the longest possible time period - preferably the whole period under study - and which are also characteristic for the performance of oil companies or of companies in general. The opening set of series collected concerns crude oil production, its level and spread by regions and countries. Next follows a series mirroring the financial performance of Royal Dutch/Shell. This consists of two groups: firstly share prices and market capitalization, reflecting the stock market's assessment of the performances of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport, and secondly summaries of the balance sheets and profit and loss statements of the Group. Unfortunately, consolidated accounts are only available from 1951 onwards. The third group of figures (also only available from 1951 onwards) relates to total sales, and the fourth category provides data on employment offered by the Group.
For comparison with Royal Dutch/Shell our reference group consists of the two companies which were its main competitors, and sometimes its closest partners - namely Standard Oil, which evolved into Jersey Standard, Exxon, and ultimately ExxonMobil, and Anglo-Persian, which became Anglo-Iranian and then British Petroleum.
We have decided to publish the collected data for the period up to the year 2000. Readers should note that we here present summaries of the most important indicators of performance. In order to arrive at series that are comparable over a century, it has been necessary to summarize and to some extent simplify the data. For more recent years, given the sensitive nature of such figures, we prefer not to publish such summarized indicators, but instead refer readers to the website of Royal Dutch Shell plc. The data published, as collated by the authors of this book, are also available on the present website.

1 - Oil production

Data concerning the oil production of the three major oil companies is based on information from various sources. Putting it all together in one list is somewhat problematic because of the different standards of measurement and criteria used. Most importantly there are the distinctions between supply, gross production and net production. Supply signifies the total amount of oil available to the company, including purchases. Gross production is the amount of oil the company produces itself including royalties. Net production is the gross production minus the royalties. Shell only started providing net production figures in 1953, while for BP the net production figures are all we have. Understandably this makes comparing the companies difficult.
During the 1970s the data are less reliable. Uncertainties surrounding the nationalization of oil companies in this period mean that even the oil majors themselves were unsure exactly how much oil they produced. New standards were adopted and survey magazines as the Oil and Petroleum Year Book *1 started giving supply figures instead of the net production. For Shell, BP and Exxon alike, in those times of nationalization, purchases became relatively more important in comparison with their own oil production.
A further difficulty is the problem of differing standards of recording and reporting. Sometimes production is measured in metric tons a year, sometimes in barrels a day. Moreover, the number of barrels to one metric ton varies, depending on the specific gravity of the crude oil. According to Royal Dutch/Shell one barrel daily is equivalent to approximately 50 to 55 metric tons per year. All the production figures used here have been converted by the average of these two numbers; one barrel a day is taken as 52.5 metric tons per year.
Shell's production figures are based on its Annual Reports, with the exception of its production during World War II. For wartime strategic reasons these figures were not made public in the Annual Reports, so we have compiled the missing data using information from Shell's archive in The Hague, and they are published here for the first time*2. The comparable figures for BP are from Ferrier, The history of the British Petroleum Company, 271, 370, 601, and Bamberg, The history of the British Petroleum Company, 69 and 242; and for Standard from Hidy and Hidy, Pioneering in big business 1882-1911, 374-5; Gibb and Knowlton, The resurgent years 1911-1927, 676-7; and Larson, Knowlton and Popple, New horizons 1927-1950. World production is derived from Etemad et al., World Energy Production.

1 - Skinner, Walter E., ed., Oil and Petroleum Manual, vols. 12-18 (1921-1927); Skinner, Walter E., ed., Oil and Petroleum Year Book, vols. 19-62 (1928-1971/2); Oil and Gas International Year Book, vols. 63-67 (1973-1977); Financial Times Oil and Gas International Year Book, vols. 68-69 (1978-1999).
2 - SHA, 190C/441A, Verslag over de oorlogsperiode aan de commissarissen (1939-1945).

Excel Worksheet 1 (72 Kb) contains the tables:
1.1 Production of crude oil: the world, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Exxon in metric tons, 1881-2000
1.2 Crude oil production of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport in metric tons, 1893-1906
1.3 Royal Dutch/Shell: Gross output of crude oil by country (in metric tons), 1907-1969
1.4 Royal Dutch/Shell: Equity Oil by region (in metric tons), 1907-1972
1.5 Royal Dutch/Shell: Equity Oil by region (in bpd), 1978-2000
1.6 Production and total supply oil Royal Dutch/Shell in metric tons, 1945-2000

2 - Share prices, market capitalization and other financial data

The main source for financial data of Shell Transport and Royal Dutch were the Annual Reports of both companies, supplying information on gross and net profits, the structure and size of balance sheets etc. Additional data on share prices for both Royal Dutch and Shell Transport (and for exchange rates between guilders, pounds sterling and dollars) were gathered from De Telegraaf, 1903-1916 and 1945-1973, Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 1903-1916 and 1945-1973, and from Van Os Effectenboeken, 1911-1977. Data on recent years are from Thomson datastream. Data on share prices were collected on a monthly basis (using end of the month data), but are presented here only as annual data (as at the end of the year). In addition, monthly figures for Tables 2.4, 2.5, 2.7 and 2.9 are presented here. As well as details of estimated figures of Figure 7, 'Return on shares of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport 1902-2002', given in the Conclusion (volume III), which largely overlap with the data presented in Tables 2.4 and 2.5 below.

Financial data for BP and Standard are from the same company histories mentioned under oil production, namely Ferrier, The history of the British Petroleum Company, and Bamberg, The history of the British Petroleum Company, for BP; and Hidy and Hidy, Pioneering in big business 1882-1911; Gibb and Knowlton, The resurgent years 1911-1927, and Larson, Knowlton and Popple, New horizons 1927-1950, for Standard. Additional financial data have been collected from the Oil and Petroleum Manual (1921-1927) and the Oil and Petroleum Yearbook (1928-1971/2).
Exchange rates between the guilder, the dollar and the pound sterling and prices indices are from www.eh.net/hmit/exchangerates/; House of Commons library, Inflation and the value of the pound, Research paper 99/20; www.iisg.nl/hpw/cpi.html; International financial statistics, IMF, various issues, and www.oecd.org/EN/statistics

Excel Worksheet 2 (109 Kb) contains the tables:
2.1 Financial data Royal Dutch/Shell in pound sterling, 1951-2000
2.2 Net income of the three oil companies, 1968-2000
2.3 Total dividends of Royal Dutch, Shell Transport, Jersey Standard and BP in pounds sterling, 1894-1938
2.4 Market capitalization of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport, 1891-1939 (in pounds sterling)
2.5 Market capitalization of Royal Dutch and Shell Transport, 1939-2000 (in pounds sterling)
2.6 Market capitalization of Jersey Standard 1914-1940
2.7 Market capitalization of Jersey Standard/Exxon 1939-2000
2.8 Market capitalization of Anglo-Persian/Anglo-Iranian, 1914-1940
2.9 Market capitalization of Anglo-Iranian/BP, 1939-2000
2.10 Share prices of Jersey Standard and Anglo-Iranian/BP, 1940-1956

3 - Product sales and natural gas sales

Sources:
- Petroleum Economist, annual overviews of the oil majors, 1967-1994
- Internal Shell Reports on 'Oil majors performance' for Exxon data after 1979
- Annual reports of Shell, Exxon and BP, 1998-2005.

Excel Worksheet 3 (19 Kb) contains the table:
3.1 Product sales and natural gas sales of Royal Dutch/Shell, Exxon and BP, 1966-2000

4 - Employment

Two sources were used:
- the Annual Reports of the companies themselves;
- the internal Shell reports on 'Oil majors performance' which gives for the 1970s more realistic estimates of total employment of BP.

Excel Worksheet 4 (26 Kb) contains the tables:
4.1 Number of employees in Royal Dutch/Shell, Exxon, and BP, 1950-2000
4.2 Regional breakdown of employment for Royal Dutch/Shell, 1928-2000