BP and Shell: Are we on the cusp of the oil mega mergers?

Telegraph (UK) ^ | 26 July 2014 | Ben Marlow

[Lorianne]

A slump in profits could reignite a flurry of deal-making and see a return to mergers of the big oil companies ___ Ten years ago, Lord Browne, the then chief executive of BP, flew to Williamsburg, Virginia, for a board meeting, where he planned to outline detailed proposals for a mega-merger with Royal Dutch Shell.

The radical tie-up had been discussed in secret weeks earlier with Jeroen van Der Veer, his counterpart at Shell, during a stroll around Lake Como in Italy.

With an estimated $9bn (£5.3bn) of synergies from the deal and Browne’s conviction that he had the backing of his own executive team, including his eventual successor Tony Hayward, the BP chief was ready to deliver the grand plan. But on the flight out of the UK, he suddenly got cold feet.

“I knew the answer even before the meeting started. The sentiment was 'why rock the boat?’ The Shell merger was not discussed. It was not going to be done and that was that… In the end we did not rock the boat; we missed it,” he recounted in his memoirs four years ago.

[minnesota_bound]

When will gas prices come way down?

[Milton Miteybad]

When will gas prices come way down?

Probably when the dollar gets much, much stronger. Or else when demand collapses due to an economic apocalypse that leaves the average citizen hunting and eating his neighbors. One or the other. I'll leave it to you to decide which is more likely. ;-)

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Never. Gas goes through "plateaus", all engineered by the elites. Right now, gas is at $3.54 a gallon. People are really celebrating that this is the "low" price. Nevermind that a few years ago, when gas hit over $3, people protested.