But otherwise it goes to reinforce my long held view (reinforced by a good few years' experience working with both)that Shell is an oil company that produces profits, and BP a profits company that produces oil. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I did not say that I found Shell to be efficient, streamlined or particularly good at producing oil.
I did find that I never had a problem (as Director of Compliance & Market Supervision at IPE) with them, and I never had anything else with BP.
The culture at Shell I encountered (when I could penetrate the bureaucracy) was based upon a core purpose of producing & refining oil: the culture I encountered at BP was based upon a purpose of producing & refining shareholder value.
I never ran into Exxon , cos they never really went near IPE. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Shell -- bureaucratic, fragmented and rather hopeless. Rather fight internally than with the rest of us. BP -- Vitol with a better credit rating. Exxon -- is it 1950 yet?
All I was saying is Shell's share price just keep waving from $40--$65-70 (then recently to $85) since the mid 90's. Meanwhile Exxon has gone up several factors. Shell has just been awful at creating shareholder value.
Total was a minor European outfit as well. They've merged with Elf and Petrofina since.
Chevron -- I better take the 5th.
http://tinyurl.com/24v23x Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
