This is the fourth article in a seven-part series examining the changing dynamics of the oil and energy industry: Introduction | BP | Exxon | Chevron | Shell | Total | Statoil

Anglo-Dutch Shell, now the world's third-largest private oil and gas company by output, was left out of the series of mergers in the early 2000s that created the supermajors of today. But prior to the industry restructuring, Royal Dutch Shell was the largest oil company in the world. The recently completed merger with BG Group, against a tough oil price backdrop, aims to keep the company among the list of the biggest global players.

Shell's easily recognizable logo comes from Shell Transport founder Marcus Samuel's father, who ran a business of importing oriental shells from Britain's eastern colonies. Samuel later went on to dominate the oil transport industry in the late 19th century. The 1907 merger with Royal Dutch allowed the companies to compete with the behemoth of Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

However, that merger left Royal Dutch Shell with a unique "dual structure" that made reforms problematic. Only in 2004 did the company finally fully merge its British and Dutch halves and appoint a single CEO. Some have blamed this divided structure for Shell's inability to enter the fray of mergers that created ExxonMobil and BP-Amoco.

BG merger

In February, Shell closed the biggest energy merger in a decade when it boldly absorbed BG Group — a company spun off from U.K. utility British Gas — for £36 billion ($52 billion). The deal was completed despite the unforeseen oil price collapse, which delayed negotiations. CEO Ben Van Beurden sought to persuade cynical shareholders that the deal was a good one, despite the original bid being based on an assumed oil price of $70 to $110 per barrel.

Strategically, the addition of BG assets in Australia has made Shell into a dominant player in the LNG market, creating what one investor has called "the Amazon of LNG." The new company will also have a solid position in Brazil's deepwater oil plays. The combination of political instability and a break-even price for Brazil's presalt oil estimated by McKinsey at $65-84 per barrel may dampen enthusiasm over these assets, but Shell's management is publicly confident.

Van Beurden's bold move

Shell's boardroom is notable for its higher CEO turnover than other majors, where long-timers like Rex Tillerson and Christophe de Margerie spend decades at the helm. Van Beurden, who was announced as CEO in 2013 as a surprise appointment, came to the top job from a position as a little-known downstream manager who worked his way through the ranks at Shell and has strong experience in LNG operations.

Seen as a quiet but demanding engineer type, when he took over he went about slimming down the company, pulling out of the turbulent Niger Delta and halting an Arctic drilling program that had been beset by troubles.

He described the BG merger as a "springboard to change Shell into a simpler and more profitable company." He pushed for the deal from the beginning in an attempt to make his mark on the company.

Crisis-led cost cutting meets post-merger streamlining

Shell is due to announce results for Q1 next week. While the news will not be as gloomy as for competitor BP, earnings reports for 2015 showed an 80 percent decline in full-year profits.

The expensive takeover of BG has left Shell short of cash, some of which it hopes to recoup in $30 billion of asset sales from 2017-18, including in Gabon where Shell has been present for half a century. The company also delayed final investment decisions on a Canadian LNG project and a deepwater project in Nigeria.

Shell is now faced with the task of integrating its crisis management strategy, in response to falling oil prices, with the post-merger streamlining of operations. The company already reduced operating costs in 2015 by $4 billion, and plans to make a further $3 billion of cuts in 2016. The 2016 spending plan amounts to around 30 percent lower than what Shell and BG spent jointly in 2015.

That will also mean severe job cuts of the kind going on across the industry. The company has started offering staff at the Netherlands head office "golden goodbyes" of 75,000 euro in an attempt to persuade 15-20 percent of staff to leave, and this week management announced that three U.K. offices would close, affecting 1,600 employees.

However, in line with its Big Oil competitors, Shell has refused to cut its prized dividend, which yields over 7 percent. The manager of an energy-focused hedge fund last week joined the chorus of those accusing majors, including Shell, of offering "unsustainable dividends" despite poor cash flow, arguing that the handsome payouts are only financed by easy access to credit and equity markets.

Even without entering the fray of mergers a decade ago, Shell has remained an enormous global company. Pragmatic CEO Van Beurden has done much to turn around a bureaucratic structure born from the legacy of a "dual structure" left untouched for decades following the 1907 merger.

The BG takeover was a bold strategic move that seeks to cement his legacy, if he can only make the figures work in a stubborn oil price environment.