Shell USA

Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States–based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a British transnational corporation "oil major" which is among the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,000 Shell employees are based in the U.S. Its U.S. headquarters are in Houston, Texas. Shell USA, including its consolidated companies and its share in equity companies, is one of America's largest oil and natural gas producers, natural gas marketers, fuel marketers and petrochemical manufacturers.

History

Royal Dutch-Shell began operations in the United States in the 1910s. Early acquisitions included William Miller Graham's California Oilfields Limited in 1913.[4] The present company formed when two Royal Dutch-Shell subsidiaries, Shell Oil Company of California and Oklahoma's Roxana Petroleum, merged with the Union Oil Company of Delaware.[5]

Legal issues

Environmental

Shell Puget Sound Refinery, Anacortes, Washington, was fined $291,000 from 2006 to 2010 for violations of the Clean Air Act making it the second most-fined violator in the Pacific Northwest. As of 2011, it has been listed as a "high-priority violator" since 2008.[29][30]

In 2008, a lawsuit was filed against Shell Oil Company for alleged Clean Air Act violation. Shell Deer Park Refinery 20 miles east of Houston, was the nation's eighth-largest oil refinery and one of the world's largest petrochemical producers. The facility was also the second-largest source of air pollution in Harris County, which ranked among the lowest in the nation in several measures of air quality.[31] According to Sierra Club and Environment Texas, analysis of Shell's reports to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, air pollutants released at Deer Park since 2003 exceeded the EPA's emissions limits.[32]

Will Oremus from Slate magazine states, "The company's business depends on being able to anticipate and respond quickly to seismic shifts in the energy market. So it employs a team of big-thinking futurists, called scenario planners, to keep it a step ahead. In 2008, the company released a fresh pair of scenarios for how the world might respond to climate change over the coming decades. Both were predicated on what the company called 'three hard truths': that global energy demand is rising, that the supply of conventional energy will not be able to keep up, and that climate change is both real and dangerous."[33]

Polybutylene lawsuit

Between 1978 and 1995, Shell Oil produced polybutylene pipes, which corrode when exposed to chlorine. A class action lawsuit was filed in 1995 against Shell Oil when the polybutylene pipes caused flooding in many households in the U.S. and Canada.[34] The settlement required Shell Oil to pay for the re-installation of piping for millions of houses for claims filed through May 2009.[35]

Campaign violations

About 6,000 Shell workers and contractors were instructed to attend a Donald Trump speech held on August 13, 2019, or take the day off without pay, losing about $700 from overtime and per diem. During his address, Trump called out specific union leaders to declare their voting loyalty. Many of the union leaders present were not consulted before the event, and memos sent to contractor management forbade any protest.[36][37] Federal law prohibits a corporation from making a contribution.[38]

former names	Shell Oil Company, Inc.
type	Subsidiary
industry	Petroleum
foundation	1912 U.S.
location city	Houston, Texas
location country	United States
key people	Colette Hirstius (president)
products	Fuel, motor oil
revenue	US$ 37.376 billion (2013/2016)‡R2R‡
parent	Shell plc
num employees	12,100+ (2021)‡R3R‡
homepage	shell.us

History

Activities

Relationship with Shell plc

Subsidiaries

Legal issues

Environmental

Polybutylene lawsuit

Campaign violations

Leadership

President

Chairman of the Board

See also

External links

References