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Our businesses
With around 102,000 employees in more than 100 countries and territories, Shell helps to meet the world’s growing demand for energy in economically, environmentally and socially responsible ways.
Upstream
Our Exploration & Production business searches for and recovers oil and natural gas around the world. Many of these activities are carried out as joint ventures, often with national oil companies.
Our Gas & Power business liquefies natural gas and transports it to customers across the world. Its gas to liquids (GTL) process turns natural gas into cleanerburning synthetic fuel and other products. It develops wind power to generate electricity and is involved in solar power technology. It also licenses our coal gasification technology, enabling coal to be used as a chemical feedstock and for more efficient generation of electricity.
Downstream
Our Oil Sands business, the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, extracts bitumen – an especially thick, heavy oil – from oil sands in Alberta, western Canada, and converts it to synthetic crude oils that can be turned into a range of products.
Our Oil Products business makes, moves and sells a range of petroleum-based products around the world for domestic, industrial and transport use. Its Future Fuels and CO2 business unit develops biofuels and hydrogen and markets the synthetic fuel and products made from the GTL process. It also leads company-wide activities in CO2 management. With around 45,000 service stations, ours is the world’s largest single-branded fuel retail network.
Our Chemicals business produces petrochemicals for industrial customers. They include the raw materials for plastics, coatings and detergents used in the manufacture of textiles, medical supplies and computers.
Schematic overview
- On- and offshore oil and gas
- Mining oil sands
- Upgrader plant
- Refinery
- Gas-to-liquids plant
- Chemical plant
- Biofuels plant
- Chemical products used for plastics, coatings and detergents
- Refined oil products: (bio)fuels, lubricants, bitumen, liquefied petroleum gas
- Gas and electricity: industrial use and domestic use
- LNG liquefaction plant
- LNG regasification terminal
- Power station
- Wind turbines
Our businesses are currently under formation. The upstream businesses of Exploration & Production and Gas & Power will be reorganised into Upstream Americas and Upstream International. Our Oil Sands business will become part of Upstream Americas. Our Oil Products and Chemicals businesses will remain in our Downstream organisation. The organisational changes resulting from the reallocation of responsibilities reflected above are subject to consultation with staff representative bodies, as appropriate.
