Market for Corporate Control - Essay Example

These stations act as its most visible presence in the public domain. Shell Oil Company is in partnership with Saudi Aramco Company which is owned by the Saudi Arabian Government with each company having a 50% stake in Motiva enterprises. This is a marketing and refining venture which operates and owns three oil refineries in the Gulf Coast of USA. It also has an 80% share holding in Pecten which is an exploration company that drills many off shore areas including the oil basin in Douala in partnership with Elf Acquitaine that is owned by the French Government.

In 1997, Texaco and Shell entered into two joint marketing and refining ventures. One of these ventures was known as Equilon which was a combination of their western and mid western operations. The second one combined gulf coast and eastern operations of Star Enterprise and Shell Oil which on its own was a joint business between Texaco and Saudi Aramco. In 2001 Shell bought Texaco’s shares in the joint partnership after Texaco combined with Chevron. However, in 2002 began converting this Texaco stations to stations with the brand name Shell.

This process was completed in 2004 and is viewed as the biggest retail rebranding process in American history. Woodside petroleum Company Background Woodside Petroleum Limited is a company based in Australia that deals in the production and exploration of oil. It is a public organisation and is based in Perth. Woodside was built in 1954 and was originally known as Woodside Oil Co NL named after Woodside which is a small town in Victoria. In the beginning Woodside did business mostly in Gippsland Basin which is situated in Western Australia but in 1960 it switched its focus to North West Australia.

It later on merged with Burmah oil and Shell to create the North West shelf group. Burmah was later on replaced with BHP and together with Shell held 40% of shares each in Woodside. However, in 1990 both Shell and BHP decided to reduce their shares down to 34%. In 1994 BHP sold its remaining shares with each share being sold at $32. Shell decided to sell about 60% of its remaining shares to organizational investors, therefore, reducing its shares in the partnership to 24%. Woodside Petroleum Company has continued with development and exploration activities within Australia and has expanded its operations to other regions most notably the Gulf of Mexico.

In Australia it is focusing on developing liquefied natural gas products in. It also manages the operations of the Vincent and Enfield oil fields which are located offshore Exmouth and Laminaria-Corallina oil fields in Northern Australia. In terms of management Peter Coleman is the current Chief Executive Officer at Woodside Petroleum Company. It is estimated that Woodside Petroleum Company is worth $27 million. Partnership of Shell Oil Company and Woodside Petroleum Company Woodside is in a partnership with Shell in the North West Shelf LNG joint operation in Western Australia.

This is the biggest resource project in Australia3. In 2001 shell attempted a takeover of Woodside Petroleum Company’s share in the partnership but its efforts were rejected by the Foreign Investment Review Board and Peter Costello who was the Australian Treasurer due to National interest. However, Shell still maintains a 34% of shares in Woodside and has conducted studies on the possibility of placing a new bid, but, Australian analysts do not expect any offer to go through because