Shell’s marketing success is often overlooked. It is one of the few companies in the world (Mercedes and Nike are others) and possibly the only one in the UK that can advertise its products by merely showing its logo minus a name. In uncertain times, such reassurance, built up over years with campaigns like ‘You can be sure of Shell’, supplies a warm comfort blanket.

The Anglo-Dutch oil group’s success is all the more remarkable when one takes into account that the company had been given a hard time by those supposedly ace judges of corporate endeavour, the City analysts. In the summer, Shell took a pasting, with analysts accusing it of offering the market inconsistencies, vagueness and contradictions. The outcry was sparked by a presentation to analysts by the company’s exploration and production division, in which Shell admitted it was downgrading its annual growth target from 5% to 3%.

The response of the market itself has been more measured. Its third-quarter results in November, predicting a 17% decline in full-year profits, were not heavily penalised. The share price recovered quickly, largely because the group has shown itself better able to cope with a falling oil price than some of its rivals. BP’s third-quarter results show a comparable 20% fall in earnings. Even so, if analysts and fund managers had been voting, Shell would not have topped the rankings. But its peers put it first, and with a slightly higher overall score than last year’s winner (73.7 compared with GlaxoSmithKline’s 73.6 in 2000).

Maybe the ranking is a two-fingered salute from industrialists and executives; they know a good company when they see one, and are aware of what it takes to achieve success. They become fed up with the constant carping from analysts and from greedy shareholders and investors who are looking for future profits rather than applauding a company for a job well done.

Shell is undergoing an enormous internal restructuring. That sort of thing is guaranteed to impress rivals, who know all too well how difficult it is to shake up the business, to persuade a board that changes must be made. The firm’s unusually collegiate management structure may also capture something of the increasingly sober and reflective corporate Zeitgeist. Shell is run by a committee comprising managing directors from companies within the group, the chairman being drawn from its number. In contrast to some of the competition, personalities are downplayed and it’s very much a team effort.

This was, in a sense, an insiders’ vote. Shell’s drive to the summit may have been helped by the sector’s advance knowledge of a smart deal in the offing. Soon after the deadline for voting passed, Shell disclosed that it had become the largest US petrol retailer after concluding a Ј2.5 billion deal with a Saudi partner to take over Texaco service stations. That left Shell with 22,000 retail sites in the US.

Viewed from this side of the Atlantic, the purchase might seem strange: after all, Shell has cut back on its UK petrol outlets. But margins are much better in the US and the Texaco business is ripe for pruning, something Shell is good at. Crucially, the deal was not of Texaco’s own making; it was forced to sell by regulators as a quid pro quo for its merger with Chevron ­ a favourable situation for Shell, as fire sales normally augur well for the purchaser. Even the City approved, believing Shell had picked up a bargain.

Shell also bought the US refining business that Texaco operated jointly with the Saudis. Shell plans to cut 1,250 jobs ­ 10% of the total ­ and make savings of $400 million a year by exploiting synergies with its already established forecourts and refining businesses in the US. Rebranding the pumps will cost $500 million, but the company’s US operations should be earning well over $1 billion a year by 2004. For once, Shell and not BP captivated the market with a sharp, global strike.

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