The Rothschilds and the Nobels

The oil companies merge
By Brita Åsbrink

By the end of the 19th century, the European oil companies had been resisting the American Standard Oil's attempts to gain a foothold in Europe and Russia for more than 30 years. But they had also been fighting among themselves, which made them vulnerable. Now they tried to merge.

In London, at the end of June 1900, Branobel's sales director, the Norwegian Hans Olsen, negotiated a merger between the French-owned oil company, Rothschild and the Nobel's sales organisations in England. Hans Olsen also negotiated with the Berlin-based German Russian Oil Import Corporation Naftaport and Standard Oil's Deutsche Amerikanische Petroleum Gesellschaft in Hamburg, which were always feuding with each other and now realised that the Rothschilds and Nobels had the better of them.

The Nobels and Rothschilds merged into the "British Syndicate" with distribution in England. Now it remained to coordinate the sale of lubricating oils inside and outside Europe. The negotiations between the Russian Nobel and the European and American companies resulted in the Société Anonyme d´Armement, d´Industrie et de Commerce with its headquarters in Antwerp, abbreviated to S.A.I.C. As a result of this merger, Branobel tied up a lot of capital abroad, which avoided it being seized by the Bolsheviks. The Rothschilds and Branobel could now to some extent continue to control the oil market.