
6. Royal Dutch Shell
If you have driven along a highway or around town, you’ve probably seen a Shell gas station. There is a lot more to Shell than pumping gas and buying snacks. The company formed through a merger of The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and The Shell Transport And Trading Company back in 1907. Only combined forces could present any challenge to the Standard Oil juggernaut. Today, the company is known as Royal Dutch Shell, or just Shell, and is headquartered at The Hague in The Netherlands. It also has the largest market share of gas stations in the world. In 2019, Shell grossed $311,600,000 in revenue.
Shell owns and operates dozens of refineries and has active drilling and exploration projects in at least 80 countries. Concern about global warming and a public push to invest in renewable energy sources, instead of burning the fossil fuels that cause global warming, will likely upset Shell’s business interests. But it is already pushing solar energy as one of its assets to remain one of the highest-earning companies for the foreseeable future.