crystal ball depicting earth on moss

Earlier scenarios

For almost 50 years we have developed scenarios to identify emerging global challenges and to guide us through change. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the financial crash of 2008, they have helped us make crucial choices in uncertain times and tackle tough energy and environmental issues.

Scenarios help us to understand how the world and its energy systems could change over the coming decades.

Their purpose is to challenge our thinking, so that we can make better business decisions and meet our commitments to others. It is in this spirit that we offer them as a contribution to public debate.

We have produced Shell Scenarios since the 1970s. They have helped us anticipate and adapt to momentous events like the oil shocks of the 1970s, the collapse of communist Europe in 1989, the surge in world energy demand and the threat of climate change.

Earlier Scenarios

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Prepared for an oil shock

Prepared for an oil shock

Arab oil-producing countries imposed an oil embargo on Western governments in October 1973 – a response to US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war. Within weeks, the price of crude oil soared from around $2.50 a barrel to $11. The high price restricted economic activity in the West, causing a slump in the stock market and a rise in unemployment.

Shell’s scenarios work had allowed it to foresee and, to some extent, prepare for this shock. We were able to recover more quickly than our competitors.

Post-apartheid South Africa

A vision of post-apartheid South Africa

Following the official end to apartheid in South Africa, Shell’s approach to scenarios inspired a series of meetings by politicians, business leaders, trade unionists, academics and community activists to consider the country’s future. Supported by the Shell’s Scenarios team, they devised four plausible scenarios for the country from 1992-2002. The project contributed to a common vocabulary and mutual understanding.

Responding to AIDS

Responding to AIDS

While the number of new cases of HIV and AIDS may be falling in sub-Saharan Africa, 1.8 million people were newly infected in this region in 2009 alone. The United Nations drew on Shell’s approach to scenarios to devise three versions of the future that explored the consequences of different government actions. These scenarios helped to guide the leaders’ response to the epidemic and to work out which response to the crisis would create the best outcome for Africa, Africans and the rest of the world by 2025.

Energy-water-food

Energy-water-food

The number of people on our planet is rising. Our demands will place increased pressure on supplies of energy, water and food. The relationship between these resources seems simple: water is needed to produce most forms of energy; energy is required to treat and transport water, and food production relies on water and energy. It is, however, more complex. Shell has used scenarios to help explore the future dynamics of these vital resources.

Our latest look at the future, New Lens Scenarios, was published in 2013. Below are some of its predecessors, which you are able to download here, in which we assess the futures that may lie ahead.

Watch the video - Imagining the future

Imagining the future

Shell Scenarios - Imagining the future

In 2012, we have our 40th anniversary of Scenarios in Shell.

And it was Pierre Wack, who put this on the map.

That was at a time when a lot of the Western oil companies

were just planning on the basis of more production from the Middle East

with business, as usual, carrying on.

However, Pierre Wack was a very bright man.

And what he pointed to was how what he called "the rapids",

the volatility in the world, would rise

as the Middle Eastern countries decided to nationalise those assets.

We were beginning to sketch up possibilities

of the kind of development that led to OPEC,

which completely changed the energy industry at that time in the 70s.

In the 80s, we were looking forward

and were beginning to see the kinds of political developments

that culminated in the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

A lot of people had discounted that Russia might emerge

and move into the world stage.

There were the oil price collapse of the 1980s.

A lot of the conditions were there - with the softening of demand

but the rising supply

were in place for an oil price collapse

that a lot of people weren't ready for and didn't see,

but the Scenarios team had.

In the 90s, there were the forces of globalisation,

market liberalisation and information technology

that were transforming the whole of society.

And, also, we could see environmental pressures building up.

One scenario was about

the real breakthrough and acceleration of China

and the way its development could be transformational.

I think we were ahead of the curve in charting the way

that might have a significant impact on the energy system.

We had a number of other milestones

like bringing sustainable development on the map,

bringing the importance of gas as part of that on the map...

We have explored many other things like disruptive technologies -

what if electric mobility would really take off

and in what form?

When you look from the 2000s,

you begin to see, also, the impact of the demand surge on resources

as prosperity and population boom,

and, also, the constraints on supply that lead to a new tightness,

and on one of the features

in what we now refer to as, "The Era of Volatile Transitions"

over the next decades.

In the shorter medium term, one of the critical questions in the West

is how we're going to emerge from the financial crisis.

Over the very long term,

there's the question as to how we transition

to what we hope would be a more sustainable world.

But one of the big challenges for humanity, for the centuries,

is the question of whether the people of Africa,

the people in developing countries worldwide

are going to be able to enjoy the quality of lifestyles

that many of us in the West have become used to.

Being a global company ourselves,

we really like to understand how that may evolve

and how we can have a meaningful part in that process.  

40 years of Shell Scenarios

Published in 2013, this book is a commemoration of four decades of the scenario making practice in Shell. It contains case studies on significant scenarios that have helped expand our leaders thinking on economic, political and social challenges of their time.

Download the brochure

More in Shell Scenarios

New Lens on the Future

Our New Lens Scenarios explore two possible ways the 21st century could unfold, with dramatically different implications for society and energy. 

New Lenses on Future Cities

We analysed six city archetypes to better understand the changing world and created scenarios for how individual cities might evolve and become more efficient.

What are scenarios?

Shell Scenarios in film

Shell scenarios energy models

Meet the Shell Scenarios team