Oil prices were at multiyear lows. The world’s largest oil and gas companies were slashing jobs and cutting spending. But their stock prices were sagging and executives were under pressure to replenish reserves.
The situation sounds like the backdrop to yesterday’s announcement by Royal Dutch Shell, the oil group with a market value of nearly ￡127bn, that it plans to buy smaller UK rival BG Group for ￡47bn excluding debt.
But similar conditions existed in 1998. Back then the oil industry reacted by unveiling an unprecedented string of megadeals, which created the behemoths that dominate the market today.
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