At the end of June 2009 retired Yerun van der Fan, Director General of the Corporation Royal Dutch Shell - the largest galaxy of the seven sisters (the seven leading oil companies that controlled the world oil market at the end of XX century . - Ed.). He worked in the company 38 years and has witnessed many changes. The experts tend to believe that his departure from the era of seven sisters has ended. In any case, their family may be a significant change.     Thanks to record prices of oil revenues and profits of oil transnational corporations (TNCs) have recently grown, and in 2008 Shell had completed at all, a leader in the global Fortune 500. Nevertheless, this does not save either the company itself or its sisters of impending problems.    In mid-1930's Royal Dutch Shell has initiated the establishment of the first branch of the international cartel, which originally consisted of three major oil companies - Standard Oil of New Jersey (the future Exxon), is Shell and BP. Later, it joined another four American companies - Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), Standard Oil of California (Socal, later - Chevron), Gulf Oil and Texaco. Powerful seven sisters (the nickname came later, in 1970. - Ed.) Controlled much of the world market for oil and petroleum products - in 1966 they extracted 76% of proved reserves (not including deposits in the USSR and China). Years fractures    It should be noted that in the early 1970's the influence of the seven sisters has weakened considerably. The first bells became a nationalized Mexican oil industry in 1938 after World War II China and Arab countries began to establish national oil companies, giving them full local deposits, forcing TNCs to make concessions and give more income countries - home field. In 1960, OPEC was founded, and the oil-producing countries to coordinate their policies. Most OPEC countries by the end of 1970 took control of all mining facilities in their states, making a western TNCs sources of oil.   Since 1970 all the major Western oil corporations have become a commodity buyers and sellers of its products. They lost their ability to dictate its will on governments, as was the 1950's and even 1960. An increase in pressure on the oil TNCs by the authorities responsible for environmental protection.     To survive and succeed in new circumstances, it was necessary to change. For example, Shell has always been renowned for their ability to make long-term projections. This sounded not traditional for western corporations broad projections of income growth over the next four to five years, a full scenario in which the leadership is trying to assess the prospects for the development of not only the industry but also society.    Nevertheless, specialists of TNCs proglyadeli approaching oil crisis of 1970. Because of the emergence on the world market of large amounts of zapadnosibirskoy oil prices behave unpredictably - the growth of quotations 1970's turned their sharp decline in 1980. Strategists advised to seek out oil in the diversification and strengthening the impact of their existing assets.    an attempt to compensate for melting proceeds, many companies to invest in other industries. For example, Exxon bought Reliance Coal - the fifth-largest U.S. coal companies, bought the company for the extraction of oil shale. Most of these projects have failed and brought Exxon $ 6-7 billion of losses. Shell purchased the coal and steel companies, forest concessions, etc. However, all these projects the company had only a loss, so after she had removed from the non-core assets. all sisters in the ear Problem 1980 cost the industry dearly.