Showa Shell Sekiyu

Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. (昭和シェル石油株式会社, Shōwa Sheru Sekiyu kabushiki gaisha) was a Japanese company that operated as a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell until it was acquired by Idemitsu Kosan in 2018 and integrated into the company the following year. It was formed by the merger of Showa Oil Company and Shell Sekiyu which was begun around 1876 in Yokohama by Samuel Samuel & Co, the predecessor of Shell Group today.

Showa Shell Sekiyu acted as an oil and energy products business in Japan and worldwide, from crude oil extraction and refining, to retail and wholesale energy supply operations.

In 1900, Samuel Samuel & Co, which had started in Japan in 1876 by Samuel Samuel as an international trading business in Yokohama, created an independent petroleum division. It subsequently set up Rising Sun Petroleum Co. Ltd (which later became Shell Petroleum) to expand its distribution channels of candles and kerosene for lamps.

Before long, Samuel Samuel & Co, which expanded as Shell Transport, merged with Royal Dutch to form Royal Dutch/Shell. Rising Sun Petroleum continued to expand its operations as the base of the Shell Group in Japan.

At the same time, oilfields were discovered in Japan along the coast of the Japan Sea primarily in Niigata Prefecture. Hayama Sekiyu and Niitsu Sekiyu, the predecessors of Showa Sekiyu, were established amidst the production of domestic petroleum.

In 1947, Rising Sun Petroleum was renamed Shell Sekiyu and resumed business. Starting with a capital agreement between the Shell Group and Showa Sekiyu, domestic oil companies deepened the collaboration with foreign oil companies.

Shell Sekiyu and Showa Sekiyu merged in 1985 to form Showa Shell Sekiyu.

On February 20, 1993, it lost half its value on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The group had just announced a loss of one billion dollars on the dollar-yen pair, or 5 times its profits. The treasury manager, who had tried to cover up and hide this financial disaster, had been fired. Yet originally, the company wanted only one thing: to protect the value of its income against a fall in the yen. Only the traders on the currencies of the group took advantage of the lack of control to speculate and no longer content themselves with hedging the risks. They increased the size of their bets in hopes of cutting their losses, which they only made worse.