Royal Dutch-Shell began operations in the United States in the 1910s. Early acquisitions included
William Miller Graham's California Oilfields Limited in 1913. 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. Shell drilled the
Alamitos oil well in
Signal Hill, California in 1921. In 1979, Shell purchased Belridge Oil Company for $3.65 billion, which at the time was called the "biggest cash takeover in American history" by US government sources. Shell also invested in
offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1997, Shell and
Texaco entered into two refining/marketing joint ventures. One combined their Midwestern and Western operations and was known as Equilon. The other, known as
Motiva Enterprises, combined the Eastern and Gulf Coast operations of Shell Oil and Star Enterprise, itself a joint venture between
Saudi Aramco and Texaco. After Texaco merged with
Chevron in 2001, Shell purchased Texaco's shares in the joint ventures. In 2002, Shell began converting these Texaco stations to the Shell brand, a process that was to be completed by June 2004 and was called "the largest retail re-branding initiative in American business history". In recent years, The Shell Oil Company's Midstream, and Downstream, in particular, have become limited to petroleum, and chemical products. This has come as a result of
Royal Dutch Shell breaking off its
Natural Gas and power businesses into a new segment named Integrated Gas. The Shell Oil Company's former Natural Gas, and energy divisions are now
Shell Energy North America, a closely integrated, but a distinctive entity that runs across North America and is headquartered out of
Houston, Texas. In June 2025, news broke of Shell seeking to acquire competitor BP in what would be the largest oil deal in decades. On August 6, 2025, it was announced that Shell would be ceasing the operations of
Volta Charging (originally acquired and merged its operations with its Recharge Network in 2023) by November and would be shuttering its 2,000
charging stations and laying off 190 employees. A selection of those employed at Volta are eligible to reapply at positions through Shell. ==Activities==